Manchester City have long been the butt of ’empty seat’ jokes from supporters of rivals clubs (mainly Manchester United fans).
At times, they’ve struggled to fill up the Etihad Stadium – both before and after its capacity was increased – much to the amusement of some.
Currently on tour in the US ahead of the new season, it seems City (with a little help from European champions Real Madrid) don’t appear to have had any issues putting bums on seats.
As pointed out by a tweet from City’s official account, the 93,098 people that witnessed their 4-1 victory over the Spanish giants at Los Angeles’ Coliseum was a new record…
ATTENDANCE | 93,098 The biggest crowd in football history at the LA Coliseum! 👏👏👏 #cityontour
— Manchester City (@ManCity) July 27, 2017
To be clear on this, as many replying to the tweet appear to have been confused, this was a record attendance for a football match played in the LA Coliseum. City weren’t trying to claim this was the highest attendance in football history, despite what some have suggested.
Still, such a figure is impressive.
Although many have pointed out that it was Real, not City, that were the reason for such a high turn out, some City fans have highlighted that there were plenty of empty seats at the recent friendly between Zinedine Zidane’s side and Manchester United in Santa Clara. The official attendance figure for the game at the Levi’s Stadium was 65,109, noticeably under its 68,500 capacity.
https://twitter.com/mcfcman66/status/890440961846910977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.joe.co.uk%2Fsport%2Fmanchester-citys-match-against-real-madrid-sets-new-attendance-record-135481
Despite being 0-0 at half-time, City went four goals up after the break against Real thanks to goals from Nicolas Otamendi, Raheem Sterling, John Stones and youngster, Brahim Diaz.
Real had to wait until stoppage time before they got on the scoresheet, thanks to a consolation strike from Oscar.
