Man City change travel plans for Bodo/Glimt in Champions League

Manchester City take on Bodo/Glimt in the Champions League tomorrow and have changed their routine to prepare for the game.

Manchester City have changed their usual preparations for a Champions League game as they head for the unknown in the Arctic Circle. Pep Guardiola’s side are doing what they can to close in on a top-eight finish as they head to Norway.

Since Covid, the Blues have opted to train at the City Football Academy on the day before Champions League games before flying to the stadium of their hosts to fulfil their media obligations when they are away from home. However, they will make an exception for the trip to Bodo as they look to adapt to the plastic pitch that they will be playing on this week.

City will fly out earlier than usual to Bodo, completing their press conference at teatime on Monday before then training on the artificial surface to get a feel of how it will play. The last time they did this was when they played Young Boys in 2023 and Guardiola explained the disadvantage it could be.

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“The grass is better,” he said. “Because 99.9% of the teams who play in high level play on grass, otherwise Uefa and Fifa would decide to play on artificial pitch. It’s common sense, I would say. It is what it is. If Uefa allows games to be played here it’s because it’s in good conditions. That’s one of the reasons we never train away but this is an exception.

“This is why we travel in the morning to allow the players to feel the surface – how the ball runs, how to move left, right, backwards, forwards. We will try it and the players will know immediately.”

City will at least not be handicapped by the climate in Norway. While it will still be freezing as they head north, temperatures in Bodo of -22 earlier this month have made way for much warmer weather and it is expected to be just below zero when they kick off on Tuesday teatime.

Bodo are also in the middle of their winter break in their domestic season, with games halted to allow for more extreme weather. The team have had a training camp in Marbella in recent weeks but have only had friendly games to try and prepare them for a competitive game against City.