City ease past Club America

Manchester City kicked off their pre-season tour of North America with a 2-0 victory over Mexican side Club America on Saturday.

Defender Ryan McGivern and winger Shaun Wright-Phillips were on target for the English Premier League club during the first half of the match in San Francisco.

City were without captain Carlos Tevez due to international commitments.

The unsettled striker, who is reportedly set for a transfer to Brazilian club Corinthians, missed a spot-kick as Argentina bowed out of the Copa America in a penalty shootout defeat to Uruguay on the same day.

City fared better than Tevez and his international colleagues, easing past America in the warm-up fixture.

Academy product McGivern struck the opener after Bosnia striker Edin Dzeko and Wright-Phillips worked the ball in the box.

The 21-year-old curled the ball to the far post to hand City a 1-0 lead 16 minutes into the match.

Dzeko set up City’s second goal 11 minutes later when he found Wright-Phillips, and the England international’s resulting shot sailed past America goalkeeper Armando Navarrete.

“I saw a glimpse of the goal and I thought I was just trying to get a clean strike in because normally I’m paused in that position,” Wright-Phillips said.

“I thought I should just get a shot off and it went in.”

Fullback Gael Clichy, who joined City from Arsenal earlier this month, made his first appearance, as did Montenegro international Stefan Savic, signed from Partizan Belgrade on July 6.

City boss Roberto Mancini was satisfied with a winning start to City’s preparations for the season ahead.

“Today was important that we played this game and we didn’t have any injuries,” Mancini said.

“We’ve been working hard the last two weeks and it is important we won this game.”

Manchester City will now take on MLS side the Vancouver Whitecaps in British Columbia on Monday.