Manchester City’s young stars lost out to Sao Paulo in the Dallas Cup semi-finals after three wins out of three in the group stages.
Cassell’s youngsters fought hard to get to the final but were beaten by a well organised and athletic Sao Paulo side.
Manchester City will now play again later tonight at 12:30am against German opponents Eintracht Frankfurt in the Consolation match.
Prolific City strikers Robbie Mak and Alex Nimely-Tchineni were kept quiet by a tough Sao Paulo defence, with neither player able to carve out a decent chance to score.
Sao Paolo created the better of the chances and as the match wore on, they were the team which looked most likely to break the deadlock.
Manchester City keeper Joe Clegg was forced to make some fantastic saves to keep his side in the game, however, neither side could force a winner over 90mins and the game ran into penalties.
Sao Paulo’s goalkeeper made two saves in the shootout to win the game and send the Brazilian side into the Dallas Cup finals where they will play Vancouver Whitecaps on Sunday.
Manchester City Squad: Abdi Ibrahim, James Poole, Jeremy Helan, Andrew Mitchell, John Guidetti, Joe Clegg, Tobias Johansen, Reece Wabara, Andrew Tutte, Robbie Mak, Alex Nimely-Tchineni, Greg Cunningham, Chris Chantler, Ahmad Benali, Jack Redshaw, Sean Tse, Dedryk Boyata, Omar Elabdellaoui.
Semi Finals:
| Eintracht Frankfurt | 0-2 | Vancouver Whitecaps |
| Manchester City | (2) 0-0 (4) | Sao Paulo |
For full group standings, visit: www.dallascup.com
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