No hydration breaks. No VAR, no overlong half-time show and relatively well-priced tickets. After the controversial monolith that was the recent 2026 World Cup, the Hong Kong football festival offered a relatively serene path back to ‘normal’ football played out between two powerhouse clubs, namely Manchester City and Inter Milan.
Inter Milan are the current Serie A champions; save for a hardcore contingent of the Nerazzurri (the black and blues) behind one of the goals, this fact seems to be lost to a majority of football fans in Hong Kong.
Inter made their second appearance in Hong Kong; the first was way back in June 1997, when the ‘Black and Blues’ took on the now defunct Sing Tao at the current Hong Kong stadium. The visitors ran out a lopsided 8-0 win with the likes of Aaron Winter, Paul Ince, Iván Zamorano and Youri Djorkaeff, all getting on the score sheet.
Manchester City have played in Hong Kong in various guises; as a middling division one team in the early nineties, at the old Hong Kong stadium, with the likes of Ian Brightwell and David White.
In 2013, City played in the Barclays Asia Trophy and defeated South China 1-0 and then Sunderland in the final. The tournament made headlines for the wrong reasons as the pitch, was like a mud patch, given the constant rain.
The most recent visit was in 2019, in this instance, City were a global conglomerate entity and steamrolled Kitchee 6-1.
As the rain lashed down outside Kai Tak Sports Park’s domed room, Inter Milan held off a fierce Manchester City second-half onslaught to win the Asahi Super Dry Trophy. The match ended 1-1 in regulation time with Inter holding their nerve, following an array of penalties, ranging from the bizarre to the sublime.
Manchester City were without mainstay star names Erling Haaland, Rodri, and Rayan Cherki. With the aforementioned in Hong Kong, a bumper crowd of 42,826 may have been a total sell-out.
Manchester City’s fans dominated the crowd, though the small contingent of Inter fans behind one of the goals were both loud and proud.
Divin Mubama gave Manchester City the lead in the 14th minute after Antoine Semenyo’s fine assist.
Benjamin Pavard, in the 20th minute, capitalised on shoddy defending to place the ball home to make it 1-1.
A New Dawn for City
A new ‘Gaffer’ for Manchester City, in the guise of Enzo Marasca, far from the chaos of Chelsea, though ironically his former club will also play in Hong Kong in the next couple of days. When asked about City’s chances in the upcoming Premier League season, Marasca answered positively.
“We will try and win titles this season and the Premier League is one of them. The EPL is one of the titles; we will try and win till at least the end. In terms of chances (to win), I think it is too early. What I would like is to, day by day, help improve the players because if you improve players, then the team will improve and this is important. In terms of chances, we will see!”
Maraca praised Hong Kong and was delighted by the fans.
“I am very happy with the performance. I am happy to be in HK on this trip, and there were a lot of fans today in the training session and today for the game. I am happy with that.”
The match ebbed and flowed with Inter dominating the early exchanges while City worked their way back into the match towards the end of the second half
A Star for the Future
The Kai Tak crowd had the chance to glimpse the raw talent of Ryan McAidoo. The dynamic winger tore into the Inter when he came onto the field. The youngster caused a whole host of problems for the Inter defence, and he came closest in the 80th minute when his drive hit the post.
Robbie McGraw was amongst the crowd and gave his views on Manchester City missing their star names like Jeremy Doku & Erling Haaland last night.
“City not having two star players on the pitch will always be a detriment to how they play and how the flow of the game went on the night. However, Enzo Maresca’s tactics shone through even without them. With incredible performances from both Semenyo and Mubama, to the untrained eye it looks like City will be firing on all cylinders in the upcoming season. However, lacking the clinical finishing of Haaland meant that even though City were extremely dominant at times, they lacked the final touch to put themselves ahead.
While playing a younger, more inexperienced team will have been a factor, lacklustre first-half performances from starters such as Foden, Savinho and Reijnders are bad omens for the plans of Maresca’s Manchester City. If Haaland and Doku were to become injured through the 26/27 season, it should worry Manchester City fans that there doesn’t seem to be a large goal output from other attacking players.
Inter Milan on the other hand, capitalised on the absence of these two players and played the game in a much more open fashion. If Haaland and Doku were to have featured in the fixture, Chivu’s Inter would have resorted back to their low block defensive game, which would have, in turn, invited a large amount of pressure from City. With there being no large attacking threat in terms of goals, Inter were able to open the game up and play more attacking football.”
McGraw enjoyed the friendly and pointed out that the youngster, Ryan McAidoo, was a star in the making.
“Overall, as a neutral fan it was a fun watch. If you look past all of the theatrics of a pre-season game being played overseas with the drums, dancing and trophies, the actual football was a relatively high level. Inter Milan’s counterattacking football looked impressive, and Manchester City’s possession-heavy game was on full display.
Enzo Maresca looked to be trying to continue using Foden in the ‘10’ position and utilise him as more of a link-up chance creator than the out-and-out goal scorer we know he can be. It’s hard to judge the performance of City and the enjoyment I got out of the game knowing they lack quite a few of their star players. Myself and others saw the 18-year-old McAdoo as the star player of the second half. He was the most enjoyable to watch in the first half by far, taking on the Inter Milan right-sided centre back with ease.
Inter Milan’s football provided some of the biggest moments of entertainment throughout the game. Di Marco had an incredible performance both offensively and defensively. Quite a number of times, the perfect cross-pitch ball was floated from Di Marco to Diouf to start a lightning-fast counter-attack. However, similar to Manchester City, there were no clinical finishes throughout the game, meaning that, towards the end of the game, there was significantly less energy in the stadium than during the first half after the two goals.”
A decent crowd just happy to enjoy an almost serene atmosphere. The darker shade of blue being triumphant
A match played as advertised; friendly.
All photos from Ryan Kam
