FIFA Club World Cup Thread

[Vesper 30,170]

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.

[ahmedou 191]

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