Goals from Ryan McGivern and Shaun Wright-Phillips proved enough to see off the Mexicans who were always second best and despite making ten changes at the break, Roberto Mancini will be pleased with his squad’s efforts.
With a modest, but noisy 11,250 crowd gathered in the AT&T Park stadium sunshine and the Golden Gate Bridge visible in the distance, the home of World Series champions the San Francisco Giants made for a picture perfect setting.
Mancini handed debuts to Stefan Savic, Gael Clichy and Freddie Veseli in an unfamiliar starting line-up that included Vladimir Weiss and McGivern, too - and it was the Northern Ireland international who opened the scoring for the Blues on 17 minutes.
A looping cross from Clichy found Wright-Phillips at the back post and the fans’ favourite still had plenty of work to do as he controlled the ball, knocked it over the defender’s head before crossing low into the six-yard box. Edin Dzeko’s effort was cleared but McGivern was first to the loose ball and curled a sweet shot around Armando Navarrete for his first senior goal.
Ten minutes later and the City fans were on their feet again as the impressive Wright-Phillips picked the ball up outside the box before lashing a low drive into the bottom right-hand corner to double the lead.
As expected, their were wholesale changes after the break with only Weiss remaining from the team that finished the first-half as Mancini gave the remainder of his squad a 45-minute work-out.
The closest City came to adding to their lead was when John Guidetti struck the post in the final minute. The Blues now face Vancouver Whitecaps in 48 hours’ time.
City starting XI: Hart, Veseli, Clichy, Savic, Lescott, Barry, De Jong (capt), McGivern, Wright-Phillips, Weiss, Dzeko
City 2nd half: Taylor, Richards, Kolarov, Boyata, Kompany, Milner, Yaya Toure, A Johnson, Guidetti, Weiss, A Mancini
