FIFA Club World Cup - Discussion Thread | First Season - 2025 | 32 Clubs |

[Pizy 18,896]

I just want us to give a good account of ourselves and not get smashed like Real Madrid just did. Make it respectable even if we lose in the end.

 

[Vesper 30,160]

21st time this season alone that PSG have scored 4 or more goals

[Fernando 6,585]

15 hours ago, Pizy said:

I just want us to give a good account of ourselves and not get smashed like Real Madrid just did. Make it respectable even if we lose in the end.

 

The reason I think they got trash is because Alonso doesn't have the team to be playing the style he wants. 

Kinds of reminds when AVB came with his high line up and all that stuff. 

He needs to get his defense sorted because he can't play that with Rudgier not good for high lineup, heck even Chalobah is better at this then Rudgier in this stage of their careers. 

[ahmedou 189]

😅😂🤣

[Fulham Broadway 17,311]

All our goals so far....

 

[Duppy Conqueror 1,532]

On 09/07/2025 at 22:07, Vesper said:

completely disagree

this is a HUGE fucking trophy

would take thsi all day, all night over another EPL title

this will only be played once every 4 years

this the first ever TRUE world club championship

the only thing you can say in terms of diminishment is that Barca and Pool were not there (sorry Arse, you do not count, you have never won a big international trophy ever in 135 years of football)

First 2 have cost me in the hundreds of thousands to watch ,the latter i've watched free on DAZN. Different priorities..

[Milan 17,956]

Well well well 

Who would have thought? 🤩

[NikkiCFC 8,317]

On 29/06/2025 at 20:47, NikkiCFC said:

Can't wait for PSG in the final to put them down to Earth with Marescaball!

[ahmedou 189]

Club World Cup Team of the Tournament:

Bono-Hakimi-Marquinhos-Thiago Silva-Cucurella-Vitinha-Enzo-Neto-Palmer-Arias-Garcia

[ahmedou 189]

 

[Vesper 30,160]

Club World Cup: The best and worst moments, standout players, fans, games and what should change

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6493120/2025/07/15/club-world-cup-review/

It was “the best v the best”, it was “the worst idea ever implemented in football”. It delivered showstopping games and some rank attendances. It endured extreme heatwaves and storm delays. Its riches were fought for fiercely by clubs, who also fear “disaster” seasons ahead. And it ended with U.S. President Donald Trump sharing the podium with eventual champions Chelsea.

Yes, it’s fair to say the newly-expanded 2025 Club World Cup was a football tournament unlike any other.

Here a selection of The Athletic’s writers on the ground in U.S. reflect on the best and worst of the event, what impact it may have on the season ahead, what it suggests the 2026 World Cup will be like and what should change before it is staged again.

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Best moment of the tournament?

James Horncastle: I enjoyed seeing a relaxed Pep Guardiola playing on the beach with his Manchester City players. It needed to be cut like a Top Gun montage with some Kenny Loggins music. The fact Loggins, a master of the 80s movie soundtrack, was overlooked as one of the musical ambassadors for this tournament feels like a missed opportunity.

Oliver Kay: I can’t claim to have witnessed it myself, but I walked through Times Square so many times over the past week that I would like to think it happened under my nose and I didn’t see it. It was that video of Cole Palmer wobbling awkwardly on a scooter, through the crowds, pretty much unnoticed, in one of the world’s biggest tourist spots, where there’s a giant billboard with his image on it. I love his ability on the pitch, as showcased in the final, and I love his authenticity off it.

 

Cole Palmer left a mark on and off the pitch (Patrick Smith – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

Jordan Campbell: Thiago Silva channeling his inner Al Pacino. The Fluminense captain delivered a stirring speech to his team-mates about not leaving things for later as tomorrow is not promised. It inspired the Brazilian side to a shock 2-0 win over Inter Milan and they then went on to beat City’s conquerors Al Hilal to make the semi-finals. It was a moment that emphasised how big a role leadership still plays in the sport and captured the significance of this competition to the South Americans.

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Mario Cortegana: From a purely footballing point of view, Al Hilal’s victory against Manchester City. It was a very beautiful game, with a lot of drama, and left us with surely the biggest surprise of the tournament. It was also a warning of what Saudi football can or intends to do ahead of the World Cup they will host in 2034.

I also really enjoyed being able to watch live and from so close (in Valdebebas they put us far away!) the first training sessions of Xabi Alonso and his staff at the helm of Real Madrid. It is very different from what we were used to with Carlo Ancelotti since 2021.

Felipe Cardenas: When Boca Juniors fans took over Miami and then turned Hard Rock Stadium into a modern version of La Bombonera. With Bayern Munich as the opponent, it was Boca’s moment to shine under the global spotlight. The stadium shook, the chanting never stopped. Miguel Merentiel’s equaliser amounted to absolute bedlam. Boca fans sang the entire game and cried tears of joy even after the loss.

Jeff Rueter: For all of the atmosphere created by their fans, Boca Juniors left much to be desired with their onfield performance. That shouldn’t tarnish the achievement of Auckland City, taking a point off of Boca to close the group stage. For the only amateur team in the field to get a result against any team, much less one of the world’s most ubiquitous legacy clubs, is the sort of game that only an event like this can create.

Mark Carey: Leaning into the Americanisms of this tournament, I found it funny that legendary boxing announcer Michael Buffer screamed: “Let’s get ready to rumble!” ahead of both semi-finals and the final. Having each player enter the pitch individually in their own respective “ring walk” is one thing, but come on — that is too much. I found it entertaining, but not necessarily for the right reasons.

Liam Twomey: This tournament will not go down as a high point in the history of the football fan experience, but the South American supporters had the best time. One memory that will always stick with me was seeing — and smelling — the Brazilian barbecue tailgate parties that Flamengo fans had in the car parks outside Lincoln Financial Field before and after their win over Chelsea. FIFA will want to see more of that fusion of local and American culture at the World Cup next year.

 

Flamengo fans enjoyed themselves in Philadelphia (David Ramos/Getty Images)

Asli Pelit: I loved watching a handful of beloved South American teams bring that unmistakable garra Sudamericana back to a sport increasingly warped by sovereign funds, private equity, and billionaire ownership. A handful of players from these clubs also reminded me that no matter how old a player is (nor how many times he’s bounced between Europe’s elite clubs) when they come back home to retire swiftly, there’s still joy in the fight. Shout out to Thiago Silva for proving it’s never just a farewell tour.

And the fans. Not the casuals who swap jerseys like yesterday’s gym shirts, but the die-hards, the ones who live for their club, who travel across continents, and who chant through the scorching sun until their legs give out. They made me remember why I do this. Why I still love this game, even when so much of it feels lost.

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Worst moment of the tournament?

James Horncastle: When the Oval Office became a mixed zone and Donald Trump spoke about the Middle East and then turned and asked a bemused set of Juventus players: “Could a woman make your team, fellas?” A club nicknamed the Old Lady has rarely looked so uncomfortable amid stately locker-room talk.

Jordan Campbell: The tears of Joao Cancelo and Ruben Neves, Diogo Jota’s best friend, as a minute’s silence was held for the Liverpool forward. As the game started, both of them were visibly still trying to trick their brains into game mode, but how could they? It was heartbreaking to watch. In that moment, it showed that the melodrama that tends to come with football is exactly that.

Mark Carey: The pain of seeing current, and former, team-mates do their best to hold their emotions together during a moment’s reflection for Diogo Jota is a memory that will not go away in a hurry. How they found the strength to think about kicking a football after recent events is beyond comprehension.

Oliver Kay: I agree with Mark. Not directly Club World Cup-related, but it was waking up in Atlanta to the tragic news about Diogo Jota and Andre Silva and then seeing and feeling what a profound effect that had on the whole tournament and the whole sport. It still doesn’t seem real.

Jeff Rueter: Gianni Infantino and Juventus’ appearance at the White House was particularly catastrophic coming a day before the U.S.’s air strikes in Iran, with reporters posing questions about Trump’s plans while Infantino watched on. Mind you, Iran qualified for the 2026 World Cup in March. For an organization that went to great lengths to keep politics away from the last instalment in Qatar, it was a flagrant instance of hypocrisy.

Mario Cortegana: Real Madrid’s painful semi-final defeat against PSG, in which the best thing for Los Blancos was the result (4-0). This thrashing has restored some worries inside and outside the team when it seemed that the arrival of Alonso had changed that.

 

Jude Bellingham, Federico Valverde, David Alaba and Arda Guler after defeat by PSG (David Ramos/Getty Images)

Liam Twomey: Sadly I fear this is doomed to become the defining image of Infantino’s inaugural expanded FIFA Club World Cup: a beaming President Trump keeping himself front and centre of Chelsea’s trophy lift at MetLife Stadium, generating the most emphatic visual riposte possible to the notion that sport can ever be kept separate from politics.

Felipe Cardenas: Hard to argue against the politicization of the Club World Cup. It was blatant and completely unnecessary. I will say that seeing Jamal Musiala’s leg break in person (even from a distance in the press tribune) was heartbreaking. In Qatar three years ago, Musiala was a 19-year-old phenom and arguably one of the tournament’s best players. Now his injury has put his participation at the next World Cup at risk.

Asli Pelit: There is a creeping Americanization of football, no one asked for and no one needs, least of all at something like the Club World Cup which is supposedly happening to make casual fans love and understand the sport. We don’t need player-by-player intros and we definitely don’t need “Let’s get ready to Rumble” echoing across a football pitch. The beauty of this sport is in its existing rituals, its global soul, not in theatrics borrowed from sports that stop every 10 seconds for commercials. Keep the gimmicks out. Let football be football.

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Player you most enjoyed watching?

James Horncastle: Angel Di Maria. I still don’t think enough is made of how important this guy is to Argentine football. He got the gold medal goal in the 2008 Olympic final, the only goal in the 2021 Copa America final and scored in the 2022 World Cup final. It was a privilege to watch him play his last games for a European team before heading home to Rosario Central.

Jordan Campbell: Since Fluminense winger Jhon Arias has gone from hipster to mainstream (and maybe Wolves) I shall avoid naming the Colombian. Ruben Neves’ pinpoint passing and set-piece delivery was a joy to witness for Al Hilal, while Palmer is just so imaginative that he excites every time he gets on the ball. But, even after all these years, it was still Lionel Messi. The narrative that he is no longer an elite player is lazy. Of course he has faded but there were very few players who proved they are clearly above him in his ability to dominate a game. Playing alongside players way below his level, he carried Inter Miami and even against PSG he had a dozen moments where he showed why his brain works differently to everyone else.

 

Messi’s Miami were dismantled by PSG but he still had his moments (Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Oliver Kay: I share Jordan’s enduring love of watching Messi, as well as Palmer. But unlike Jordan, I’m not too cool to have been anything other than spellbound by Fluminense’s Arias. What a player: so skilful, so creative, so clever but also so direct in what he does. I would love to see how he fares in Premier League if he does join Wolves, but I kind of love the fact that he’s 27, at the peak of his powers, and still playing in South America.

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Mark Carey: I enjoyed Arda Guler dropping into a deeper role and dictating Real Madrid’s build-up from deep. Guler has struggled for regular minutes since moving to Spain, but was billed as an heir to Luka Modric by Ancelotti before he left the club. It looks like next season will be the biggest of the 20-year-old’s career under Alonso.

Mario Cortegana: Gonzalo Garcia. Even for those of us who follow the Real Madrid academy, his emergence has been impressive. It’s not normal for a kid from Castilla (Madrid’s reserve team) who had only played 61 minutes this season under Ancelotti to have taken advantage of injuries to Kylian Mbappe and Endrick in this way, with four goals and an assist in six games. And his impact has gone beyond this very good data: we must highlight his defensive work, his reading of the game, the feeling he puts into each play…. The best summary of his tournament is that Alonso compared him to club legend Raul.

Jeff Rueter: Nottingham Forest fans should feel bullish about Igor Jesus’s chances of acclimating to the Premier League. With Botafogo, the 24-year-old showed clever movement to pair with his immense physicality to win headers and create separation in the box. Having earned four caps for Brazil since debuting in October, he’ll be determined to make the World Cup roster.

 

Igor Jesus, coming to a Premier League ground near you (Photo: Justin Setterfield – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

Felipe Cardenas: I thought that none of us were going to pick Arias. Well done, Oli. No one, and I mean no one, was able to take the ball off of the Colombian. His low center of gravity and apparent casual way of transporting the ball around the pitch is so impressive. However, I covered PSG multiple times during the tournament and came away as a fan of both Desire Doue and Bradley Barcola. Both players are street-ball type dribblers that any football fan would enjoy watching.

Liam Twomey: No player made a bigger impact on the business end of this Club World Cup than Joao Pedro. The Brazilian was on holiday when Chelsea signed him from Brighton & Hove Albion during the mid-tournament player registration window, but his holidays are clearly nowhere near as indulgent as mine. He arrived in prime shape and immediately transformed Chelsea’s attack, providing a clinical edge to Enzo Maresca’s possession play with two brilliant goals in the semi-final win over Fluminense and one more in the final against PSG. Given the riches on offer at this tournament, he has already repaid his transfer fee.

Asli Pelit: Ousmane Dembele. His football IQ and spatial understanding were remarkable. I don’t know what happened to him at the final but until then, he was brilliant and a joy to watch.

 

Ousmane Dembele was irresistible against Real Madrid (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

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Best fans of the tournament?

James Horncastle: I’d expect everyone to say Boca, and with good reason. Bayern’s captured some of the sentiment with their banner at the Auckland City game. “Ten years Baur au Lac. World football is more poorly governed than before. Smash FIFA!” I’m going to go with the fans who actually turned up for the Mamelodi Sundowns-Ulsan game in Orlando. To be one of the 3,000 that felt like 300, now that’s hardcore.

Jordan Campbell: Flamengo. It is difficult to decide between them, Palmeiras and Botafogo but, from what I witnessed, Flamengo showed why they have the biggest fan base in Brazil. They turned out in swathes and organised themselves at games so that it felt like a domestic setting with blocks of red generating the best buzz of the live games I witnessed. An honourable mention must go to the estimated 15,000 Saudis who were in Orlando to see Al Hilal beat Manchester City as they were seriously boisterous.

Oliver Kay: Urawa Red Diamonds’ fans were amazing. I loved the constant singing, the bouncing up and down, and the overall commitment to supporting their team and enjoying the experience, thousands of miles from home, when they were losing every game. They even did that wonderfully Japanese thing of cleaning up the terraces after themselves. I had a nice chat with a couple of their fans in Charlotte. They’d bought tickets for a knockout game there in anticipation of winning the group. They agreed that was hilarious.

 

Urawa Red Diamonds supporters left an impression (Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images)

Mark Carey: The Brazilian fans have had such rave reviews, and I agree. I watched Palmeiras twice in the flesh, and their fans did not stop bouncing the whole game from behind the goal. When Paulinho scored an extra-time winner against Botafogo? Bedlam. Unlike anything I have seen in England.

Felipe Cardenas: Supporters for every Brazilian club really showed out during the tournament. I’ll add River Plate’s fans as well. Perhaps they weren’t given the credit they feel they deserve. River played all three group matches on the West Coast of the U.S., which for River fans and some pundits in Argentina, was a slap in the face. ‘How dare they put Boca in Miami and River in Seattle?’, they argued. But still, Los Millonarios didn’t make headlines with their traveling band of loyalists, but they were well supported in a part of the country that wasn’t as accessible for their fans.

Mario Cortegana: From what I have been able to experience live, those of Real Madrid. Several players actually expressed that it was almost like playing at home. From what I have seen and heard on television, I would highlight the Argentines, above all, and the Brazilians.

Jeff Rueter: It’s one thing to travel around the world to follow a tournament favourite. For fans who made the trip to catch the field’s lesser-followed clubs, like the Mamelodi Sundowns-Ulsan match as well as those of Auckland City, it seemed like an unforgettable chance to see their teams play on a global stage.

Liam Twomey: Flamengo’s supporters were the best I saw in person, both in terms of numbers and volume, and I was fortunate enough to see them twice. A word of acknowledgement for the fans of Esperance de Tunis, however, who brought their songs and their drums to Philadelphia and never allowed their spirit to be dampened even as Chelsea ruthlessly dispatched their team.

Asli Pelit: I spent most of the tournament with Fluminense and Palmeiras fans: pure passion, non-stop music, the kind of energy that makes you feel alive. But when it comes to sheer fandom, Boca fans in Miami and Los Millonarios out on the West Coast put everyone else to shame. You could feel it through the screen, even with DAZN’s spotty coverage trying its best to ruin the vibe.

 

Boca fans gather on Miami Beach (Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)

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Best game of the tournament?

James Horncastle: I enjoyed a lot of the football at this tournament. It wasn’t played at a pre-season pace. If it looked like it did at times that was a consequence of the heat. Manchester City-Al Hilal stands out. Mamelodi-Borussia Dortmund was great fun and there were some good 0-0s, notably Sergio Ramos’ Monterrey against River Plate, which was studs up and guards down; a Street Fighter arcade.

Jordan Campbell: Manchester City 3-4 Al Hilal. It had everything. The Saudi side refusing to kick off until the Venezuelan referee (called Valenzuela) checked the VAR monitor (he didn’t), a goalkeeping clinic from Yassine Bounou, Malcom becoming the world-class player many believed he would for half an hour and, after a late extra-time winner, a major upset. Don’t forget the geopolitics, either. It was one of those rare games that once it burst into life, literally anything could have happened and it would not have been a surprise. Utter chaos.

 

Marcos Leonardo settles a Club World Cup classic (Mohamed Tageldin/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Oliver Kay: The most enthralling game was Al Hilal’s 4-3 victory over Manchester City, as others have said, but I also really enjoyed PSG’s 2-0 win over Bayern in Atlanta. It was outstanding, lots of drama and high-quality performances on both sides. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Champions League knock-out round — which, although Infantino won’t like this, remains the gold standard for club football.

Mark Carey: Not just because I was lucky to see the game live, but PSG’s dismantling of Real Madrid was nothing short of the perfect performance. Luis Enrique’s side made Madrid look like a European minnow, bagging three goals before we had reached half an hour. A 4-0 victory was actually a mercy, as PSG took their foot off the gas in the second half in the scorching New Jersey heat.

Mario Cortegana: Although it could also be the PSG-Real Madrid, I’ll take the Manchester City 3-4 Al Hilal. The result was a surprise, the game was a rollercoaster, there were so many goals and it went all the way to extra time. The reactions and the faces of Guardiola and his players also showed how much they cared.

Jeff Rueter: Botafogo’s 1-0 upset of PSG and Flamengo’s ensuing 3-1 win over Chelsea provided this tournament with its proof of concept that teams from beyond Europe could spring surprises. Botafogo’s win saw Renato Paiva concoct a bold scheme, defending with an aggressively advancing defensive line to limit PSG’s space. And, in true “big club” fashion, Botafogo fired Paiva after a round of 16 exit. So it goes.

Felipe Cardenas: Aside from Musiala’s horror injury, the PSG-Bayern clash was, as they say, a proper football match. Both sides were absolutely going for it, with the French champions admitting the day prior that revenge was on their minds. PSG had not forgotten a loss they suffered at the Allianz Arena in November of 2024 during the Champions League. Before over 65,000 people in Atlanta, this European battle was tactical, attacking and full of dramatic moments. PSG eliminated Bayern 2-0 with nine men. It was an incredible theatre.

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Liam Twomey: At the risk of being skewed by the matches I attended, I’ll go for Bayern’s 4-2 win over Flamengo in Miami. Filipe Luis’ side played the best football of any non-European team at this tournament and after a horrendous opening 10 minutes they really turned the screws on Bayern, who were rescued ultimately by the clinical finishing of Harry Kane.

Asli Pelit: Echoing Jeff, I loved how Flamengo and Botafogo beat Chelsea and PSG unexpectedly in the group stages. I love a good underdog story in football. Monterrey vs Inter Milan was also a good one.

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The Club World Cup makes me think next summer’s World Cup will be…

James Horncastle: Better. Of course, it’ll be better than this tournament. But it will also be disrupted, it’ll be hot, expensive, knackering and the U.S. and its cities are so sprawling I think there will still be times when you ask yourself: is a major tournament going on here? I left the Club World Cup seeing cracks in the facade of America as the greatest place on earth to experience live events.

Mark Carey: Hot. You can improve things elsewhere — you can even have a bigger PR push to get more fans in the stadium — but you cannot change the weather conditions. In club football, established patterns of play means that players can adapt tactically to the conditions a little more, but internationally you are not afforded that same time to work on those ideas. Therefore, next summer could be quite an attritional tournament.

 

There were many weather delays during the Club World Cup (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

Jordan Campbell: Peripheral. I say that because while I think the football at the Club World Cup itself was a success, it just never seemed to be the centre of attention in any city. It didn’t help that it was competing for attention with the Gold Cup, NFL, NBA and MLB but I’m not sure you can truly have a captive audience spread across three different countries. Major tournaments are supposed to feel like the centre of the universe for a few weeks . The World Cup is the biggest prize in the sports world but there were regular challenges in trying to find bars who knew the tournament was happening, or who were prepared to show it on one of their million screens. It could make the whole thing seem a little numbing next summer.

Oliver Kay: Big … and hot … and possibly chaotic. The past four weeks have barely scratched the surface of next summer’s potential, but the World Cup will be a different matter. It will be spread out across three countries, but I think it will really resonate in the host cities, with so many more fans arriving from overseas. There’ll be more pressure on airlines and public transport, that is for sure.

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Mario Cortegana: There is plenty of room for improvement, though I have my doubts over how much will change. It is clear that the weather has been a very negative factor, as well as the quality of the grass (although I expected more serious injuries and thankfully there were few). Ticket sales, prices and the press facilities also left much to be desired.

Jeff Rueter: More “business as usual” than spectacular. Don’t get me wrong: a World Cup will always break away from the churn of the sport’s routine, and there’s no like-for-like comparison to be found against the Club World Cup. Still, there’s a bit of big event fatigue settling in for ticket-buying fans, players, coaches and stadium staff. From the 2024 Copa América to this Club World Cup — plus the looming 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles — the world’s biggest tournament just feels like the latest in a litany of biggest tournaments.

Felipe Cardenas: Overwhelming. The cross-country travel, 48 teams and their supporters, an aviation industry that’s understaffed and under fire will all become significant factors. I agree with James that this Club World Cup, while described as a 2026 dress rehearsal, cemented the fact that the U.S. still has work to do as the host of a major football tournament. The Copa America last summer broke open the cracks in the infrastructure that Americans so often boast about.

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Liam Twomey: Slower to gain momentum. Even in a Club World Cup group stage that sagged at times, the performances of the South American teams created some fun early intrigue. A 32-team tournament maintained some semblance of urgency; now imagine a format which requires an entire group stage to go from 48 to 32 teams. There will be more interest in next summer’s World Cup, but more boredom early on too.

Asli Pelit: Here’s my wish list for next year: More cooling stations around stadiums. If noon kickoffs are non-negotiable, then keeping fans hydrated and safe in 110-degree heat isn’t optional. People need shade structures and water fountains. And while we’re at it: simplify public transportation to the stadiums. No one should need a GPS, a prayer, and three train transfers just to get to a game.

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One way this Club World Cup will shape next season is…

James Horncastle: The participants will be late back, less rested and more injury-prone. People still haven’t realised AFCON is in January and it clashes with the expanded Champions League. PSG aside, I wonder how many of the teams involved will win their domestic league.

Jordan Campbell: From speaking to performance and fitness coaches in the Premier League a few months back, those not working at a club competing at this tournament have thanked their lucky stars. They believe it is a logistical nightmare as a three-to-four week gap either side of the tournament does not allow enough time for proper recovery and a full pre-season, meaning it is likely that some players will come in undercooked and take time to get going or could be overcooked and trail off, potentially due to injuries, as the season wears on.

Oliver Kay: I honestly don’t know yet because it’s such an unknown. I felt pre-tournament that it could really undermine Chelsea, Manchester City, Real Madrid etc, because no sports scientist would recommend the kind of summer they have had. It might actually work in the opposite way and benefit in the short term, but I think the effects will be felt more in the medium term. Even if they battle on through to May, how many of these players will be in peak condition for the World Cup?

 

Harry Kane attempts to cope with the searing heat (Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Mark Carey: Actually not that much. I do not agree with FIFA flogging players with too many games at all, but I don’t think this summer’s tournament will have a tangible impact on the outcome of next season. If there were one thing, it should put more onus on managers rotating their squads a little at the start of the campaign, but otherwise I think its influence will be negligible.

Mario Cortegana: Madrid, the Spanish club to go furthest, will have a three-week vacation, so I don’t expect a big impact. I was expecting more in terms of injuries during the tournament, as it was stretching an already very demanding season by almost a month. I do think it could have more damage on clubs in leagues that start the competition earlier.

Jeff Rueter: To Mark’s point, I’m very curious if it will be remembered more than a few months from now. Given its branding, one would think this should be a major pillar of the 2025 calendar year. But will Ballon d’Or voters really give outsized considerations to performances in this Club World Cup? Or will this be treated as little more than the most lavish preseason tournament in history for European clubs?

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Liam Twomey: It’s hard to imagine their Club World Cup exertions helping Chelsea from a physical perspective next season. They’re going on holiday while all of their Premier League rivals build up the conditioning that is vital to sustain a 10-month campaign. On the other hand, the collective confidence this triumph — and particularly the manner of their win over PSG — will give everyone at Chelsea could be genuinely transformative.

Felipe Cardenas: Player welfare will remain a talking point and players, coaches, fans and pundits will refer to the Club World Cup as one reason the players may look fatigued in 2025-26. On the flip side, the competition did prepare teams for their trophy quests. When the Copa Libertadores and Champions League rolls around (and other domestic and international tournaments), perhaps we’ll see more battle-tested personalities from teams who were in the competition this summer.

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In the future the Club World Cup should…

James Horncastle: Be less about Infantino, although I understand why this edition was about him. It was the first and it is his baby. So much of the focus was on him and whether or not the tournament worked. There were no other narratives to fall back on. In time, that will change as was the case with the World Cup through the 1930s and 1950s and the European Cup into the 1960s and 1970s.

Jordan Campbell: Lean into continental rivalry. It billed itself as ‘best vs best’ and gave many a stick to beat it with after a 10-0 in the second game but the competitiveness of this tournament showed that there is a concept worth pursuing. The South American pride coming up against the wealth of Europe was a strong narrative throughout with all the cultural and stylistic differences it brings. If the Saudi Pro League can provide a few of the Asian representatives in 2029 there should be a third pole capable of competing.

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What can the Club World Cup tell us about the strength of leagues around the world?

Just how good is the Brazilian top flight? Is the Saudi domestic game improving or is there still a huge gulf in quality between its clubs?

Oliver Kay: See revenue distributed in a way that genuinely benefits the game, rather than just the richest clubs in each region. Before the tournament, Infantino lamented how, in modern football, “the elite is very concentrated in very few clubs, in very countries”, which is certainly true. And yet more than $300million of an (absurd) $1billion prize fund will be split between Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. If Infantino genuinely thinks this helps football’s financial inequalities, rather than compounds them, then he hasn’t learned much from his time at UEFA. If a huge prize pool was the only way to make it attractive to the biggest clubs, then what does that tell us about the tournament?

Mark Carey: Have better playing surfaces. It has been widely spoken about, but the bounce of the ball — or lack thereof — has been notable from the television coverage, never mind from the perspective of the players. Considering this is being pitched so favourably by Infantino, the very least you should expect in future is a pitch that is befitting of the elite level. This would be a major step forward.

 

A fire hose is used to water the pitch in Seattle (Photo: Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)

Mario Cortegana: Selling this tournament as if everything has been rosy may have felt necessary to FIFA for the first edition, but for the next one I hope they leave that a little behind. I also hope that during these years they show real interest in improving the schedules to protect professionals and fans from the heat or the quality of the pitches.

Jeff Rueter: Have some sense about kick-off slots. Mid-afternoon games in the American summer looked unnecessarily gruelling. With apologies to my friends in Europe who could catch games in primetime, it did a disservice to players and fans alike.

Asli Pelit: I’ve got a long list of suggestions echoing my colleagues who touched upon my concerns above. But maybe the place to start is simply asking players and fans: do they even want this tournament to continue? Before expanding formats and squeezing in more fixtures, maybe ask whether we actually need yet another tournament.

 

Empty seats were a lasting legacy of the Club World Cup (Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)

Liam Twomey: Make player welfare a bigger consideration than maximising viewer numbers. It feels mildly miraculous that we reached the end of this tournament without a significant player health scare on the pitch, given the brutality of the heat inside many stadiums.

Felipe Cardenas: Never use Freed from Desire as the tournament’s soundtrack ever again. I used to like that song.

[Vesper 30,160]

Chelsea, champions of the world – a surreal end to a strange tournament of dubious purpose

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6492689/2025/07/14/Chelsea-trump-infantino-purpose/

Reece James couldn’t work out what on earth was going on. President Donald Trump had just handed him the Club World Cup trophy but was still there on the podium, grinning, not going anywhere.

Some of James’ Chelsea team-mates, standing behind him, couldn’t stop laughing. Cole Palmer, the star of Chelsea’s 3-0 victory against Paris Saint-Germain, furrowed his brow and looked at Trump in apparent bewilderment before urging James to wait. “I was a bit confused,” Palmer told reporters afterwards.

James turned to Trump and, in front of a packed crowd at MetLife Stadium, as well as a sizeable global television audience, appeared to ask the President of the United States whether he was planning to leave him to it, as convention usually dictates. But Trump kept grinning happily, so James, the victorious Chelsea captain, decided he might as well just hoist that giant gold-plated trophy skywards.

And as fireworks filled the sky above the MetLife and the curtain fell on this four-week tournament, we had the surreal scene of Trump still in the thick of Chelsea’s celebrating players, clapping along enthusiastically, to the point where even FIFA president Gianni Infantino looked embarrassed enough to try to drag him away.

“They told me that he (Trump) was going to present the trophy and then exit the stage,” James told The Athletic afterwards. “I thought he was going to exit the stage, but he wanted to stay. And that probably highlights how big the tournament is.”

 

Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino watching the Club World Cup final (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

What a strange tournament. What an unusual day in East Rutherford, New Jersey, a Super Bowl-inspired extravaganza in which two halves of a football match bookended a 24-minute half-time show before a trophy ceremony that saw sections of the crowd loudly boo Trump, before the president found his happy place up on the podium with Chelsea’s players.

And what a surprising finale, with James and his team-mates overwhelming an outstanding PSG side to win the first Club World Cup of the tournament’s expansion era. Chelsea are champions of the world and, after a very productive month in the United States, more than $100million richer. By the end of the evening the Empire State Building, across the water in Manhattan, had been lit up in Chelsea blue.

That has been the whole purpose of the past month, according to Infantino: “To determine, for the first time in history, which will be, really, the best club in the world”. 

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That is a claim that triggers a range of responses. An immediate one is to dispute that rationale and to suggest that, on the contrary, the Club World Cup’s prime purpose appears to be a cash grab and, with it, an opportunity to claim back some of FIFA’s power and influence within the world game by getting its hands on club football and selling it to would-be commercial partners — particularly, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Another is to question how this tournament could determine the world’s best team when the champions of the three strongest leagues (Liverpool in the Premier League, Barcelona in La Liga and Napoli in Serie A) were not among the 32 clubs who qualified.

Chelsea were here because they won the Champions League in 2021. Since then, with the club sold by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to a consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, their squad has undergone a drastic and highly expensive overhaul. Only one player (James) from their 23-man squad for that Champions League final was part of their squad for this tournament. The turnover since then has been enormous, with Romelu Lukaku, Kalidou Koulibaly and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang among the players who have come and gone in addition to a succession of coaches.

To anoint a team as the world’s best would have made more sense in the context of a PSG side who scaled such heights in the Champions League knockout stage (eliminating Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal before thrashing Inter 5-0 in the final) while Chelsea were overcoming Copenhagen, Legia Warsaw, Djurgardens and Real Betis to win the rather less prestigious Conference League. Even at the Club World Cup, PSG could claim to have beaten much stronger opposition en route to the final, including Atletico Madrid (4-0), Bayern Munich (2-0) and Real Madrid (4-0).

But Chelsea have improved as the tournament has gone and were entirely worthy winners on the day, not just disrupting PSG’s rhythm in midfield but attacking them almost from the start, too. Their coach, Enzo Maresca, set up his team superbly and seemed to have identified an unlikely weakness in the opposition defence, with PSG left-back Nuno Mendes appearing surprised and unsettled by the way Malo Gusto, Palmer and Joao Pedro targeted him on that side of the pitch. Chelsea’s goals, all in the first half, all came from that side: Palmer scoring with two typically adroit finishes in the far corner before a delightful pass set up Joao Pedro for a delightfully taken third.

“Being Club World Cup champions is something that we are very proud of,” Maresca said afterwards. “We are very happy, especially against PSG, who, as I said in the press conference two days ago, I consider the best in the world, with one of the best managers in the world (Luis Enrique) and fantastic players. Today has been a top, top achievement.”

It was. And it should be held up as such. It is not hard to find flaws in some of Infantino’s wilder claims about the impact of this Club World Cup, but even if this edition of the tournament has not captured the public imagination among fans in Europe, it has been a tough competition — taken seriously by all the participating clubs, particularly given the size of the prize pot — and one that is here to stay whether its critics like it or not.

Maresca went further. “I said to the guys (players) inside that I have the feeling that one day this competition is going to be as important as — if not more important than — the Champions League,” the Chelsea coach said. “I was lucky three years ago to be part of the coaching staff when we won the Champions League (with Manchester City). I lived all these moments, but the truth is that this competition is one of the best in the world. We value it (the same) as the Champions League, if not more so, because it has really been a great triumph for us.”

 

Enzo Maresca has his turn with the Club World Cup trophy (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

It could also prove to be a springboard for Chelsea. Winning the Conference League in May already seems to have helped a young group of players who have been prone to collective lapses and losses of confidence. This, along with a strong finish to the last season in the Premier League, should give them momentum. “It’s a big statement,” James said. “I’m happy with how much the club has progressed. Next season we’re (going to be) competing in the Premier League, to win the title, and competing to go far in the Champions League as well.”

There are legitimate questions to ask about whether Chelsea, PSG, Real Madrid, Manchester City and others who have competed in this tournament will regret the disruption to what should have been a summer break. It is strange to think Chelsea’s players will only be starting a three-week break at a time when their rivals are already back in pre-season training.

But winning this tournament should do wonders for their belief, both individually and collectively. For players such as Robert Sanchez, Gusto and Trevoh Chalobah, who have had difficult spells over the past season or two, it should help convince them they can play an important role at Chelsea. For Palmer, who went through a dip in form in the second half of last season, it is a reminder of his enormous quality and the level he might yet reach. For new signing Joao Pedro — “three games, three goals,” he told reporters afterwards, forgetting to add, “one Club World Cup medal” — it is a tantalising glimpse of the possibilities ahead.

There was still undeniably something odd about the whole venture, though. It is strange to see and hear the president of FIFA repeatedly claiming that this is an entirely new tournament, that Chelsea are “the first official FIFA Club World Cup champions” rather than acknowledging they have won an expanded version of a competition that has existed since 2000, and that Chelsea previously won in 2021 as reigning champions of Europe. Surely it would make more sense to talk up a competition’s history rather than deny it — unless, of course, this is more about Infantino’s personal brand.

The FIFA president has put himself front and centre of this tournament — and his signature, twice, on that enormous gold-plated trophy — but placing his “great friend” Trump at the heart of the trophy presentation was too good an opportunity to resist. Chelsea’s co-owner, Boehly, who is no stranger to Trump’s orbit, was up there on the podium as part of the presentation party, too. Maybe, recalling a memorable scene in The Simpsons, there was a missed opportunity when the boos started: “No, Mr President, they’re saying Boo-oehly.”

But it all ended in smiles and cheers and, frankly, surreal scenes of a type that might live in the memory longer than the football we have witnessed over the past month. Which is not to say that the football has been poor — some of the matches were excellent — but the game is so all-consuming these days, so unrelenting from one season to the next, that there is rarely time to dwell or reflect for long on anything. More tournaments, bigger tournaments, more revenue, more, more, more. This four-week tournament, hastily squeezed into a gap in a congested calendar, is a perfect example of that.

One of the great contradictions about the sport is that the more it has grown, the more it has put itself at risk of being used and overshadowed by geopolitical factors. Maybe the way Trump stayed a little too long on the podium was purely a case of crossed wires, but it did feel symbolic of something more than just a new-found affection for Chelsea or a liking for a giant gold-plated trophy which, having spent the past week in Trump Tower, is now on its way to Stamford Bridge.

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