Let's be honest, if Stones hadn't made the mistake last night we wouldn't be asking this. It was a mistake, but those mistakes will happen if you play out from the back. He's made one mistake this season - one bad pass in about 3000. I can live with that. Again, it shows how good City are that we've probably made over 50,000 (I have no idea) passes and we've not made clangers!
Anway, I don't doubt for one second that City would beat this England team 9 times out of 10. We know that players like Phillips, Pope etc wouldn't get into City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester or United's teams.
However, what I do like about international football is exactly this: for every Foden, Sterling, Kane and Stones there's a Pope, Phillips and Rice who aren't top class players. Part of the puzzle is how to make it work. And plenty of teams and managers make very good teams from their parts.
Teams like Greece, Denmark, Turkey, South Korea don't have great players generally, but Greece won the Euros and Turkey and South Korea have got to the WC semis. Portugal had Ronaldo, but not too much else when they won the Euros. Croatia got to a WC final. It shows that if your coach is skilled they can take a collection of players and make them into a unit. This is something we almost managed in the last WC and whilst I don't want Southgate at City he can take some credit for doing better than most of his predecessors - some of whom are/were very well regarded such as Sven, Capello, KK etc.
So, does all this benefit City? I think it's an honour to play for your country still. I think it does. For me, it's like playing in the CL - the great players and teams win club honours, European honours and international honours.
The players will come up against different styles of play in different stadiums around the world. Playing good teams like Belgium, Italy, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Holland, Portugal, Croatia etc you WILL be learning new systems of play. You will be up against great players, good coaches. Our players will benefit from that. Even playing Iceland and Greece etc you will have to learn how to unpick locked defences.
For City, it probably allows us to "speak" to other players too and get scouting reports from them. I'd be amazed if no one had asked Bernardo and Cancelo about Dias for example. Do you reckon Aguero has spoken to Messi? Of course. Does Jesus chat to Neymar? Of course. Can Jesus tell you about the players from Chile, Uruguay and Peru - yep, he's played against them!
Of course, playing against a passionate Turkey team with the atmosphere their fans create for example will help them learn how to cope under pressure. If you can handle yourself in the big arenas, going to Old Trafford and Anfield isn't too bad.
They will also benefit personally from prestige - their transfer value will increase. They will also benefit financially from sponsorship deals too - won't mean much to us, but to them it will do.
So, yes I do think it benefits the club and players :)
