Chelsea the World Champions

At least it was not Tottenham that won the very first World Club Cup and went into the history books. It was another London club, namely Chelsea, who just needed one half to secure the title against the favourites from Paris St. Germain. Two splendid strikes from Cole Palmer in the lower right side of the Paris goal and one strike from the new Chelsea revelation Joao Pedro, and the final was decided against a disappointing PSG side that lost with no honour as Joao Neves was shown a red card for a distasteful pulling Cucurella's hair, and as the game ended, instead of congratulating the winners, PSG players entered into an ugly brawl led by manager Luis Enrique.

Extremely disappointed about the Spanish manager and PSG as a whole for contributing to making it into an ugly event.

Probably we will see more of this in the future as honour disappears from football.

In the meantime the Chelsea celebrations were awkward as the US president stood in the midst of the players as they were handed the trophy.

The entire thing was more awkward than historical. A pity for a tournament that I think was an overall success.

The Club World Cup finalists

Unfortunately Fluminense were unable to defeat Chelsea to make it to the Club World Cup. The English side were better, but it is worth noting that the player who scored both splendid Chelsea goals in their 2-0 victory, Joao Pedro, scored them against the team that made him. The 23-year old striker, who scored his first Chelsea goals following his transfer from Brighton & Hove Albion, did not celebrate the goals against his childhood club.

He will be a player to watch next season as Chelsea try to get back to the top of the Premier League.

All this said, Chelsea will have a difficult time in the final where they will face an extraordinary Paris St. Germain side. The Parisians won a memorable Champions League final on June 1st, and in the semifinal against Real Madrid were as deadly: 4-0 against the Spanish giants with two goals by Fabian Ruiz, and Ousmane Dembele and Goncalo Ramos each scoring one. The victory could surely have been bigger, but in the heat and considering the final, Luis Enrique decided to let the foot of the speeder in the second half.

In the midst of this a thought to Kylian Mbappe: the great Frenchman last season changed from PSG to Real Madrid in order to win titles, but since he left PSG has won it all, and Real Madrid has won nothing....

PSG-Chelsea in the final. As everyone says, anything can happen in a final, but it appears likely that this "anything" is tipped heavily in favour of the great Parisians, who will be delighted to be officially crowned as the world's best team. 

Value for money

Chelsea Manager Enzo Maresca illustrated European arrogance or ignorance when he had to explain why European sides were not performing in the Club World Cup. According to the Italian it was because European sides play more matches, and said that his own team, Chelsea, had played 63 matches this season, and asked (rhetorically?) how many matches the Brazilian teams had played this season.

"70 matches", was the reply from a Brazilian journalist.

Indeed, the playing calendar of most South American sides is packed with matches in a lot of tournaments because they fight with a problem that European sides, specially Chelsea, don't have: they need money. 

So when Mr. Maresca wants to justify that Brazilian sides are doing well in the Club World Cup he very conveniently ignores that he has a squad of 46 millionaires valued at USD 1 billion, while Fluminense has a squad of 36 players valued at USD 86 Mio. 

Surely the Brazilians under their manager Renato Gaucho are more value for money, and today Fluminense will hopefully again defeat Chelsea and European arrogance.

At least we now know that Chelsea have not studied Fluminense!

Europeans defeated

In 1930 many European countries looked down on the initiative to hold a World Cup in Uruguay, and many European nations decided simply not to participate; some because of the costs of sailing halfway around the globe, but many more because they considered it beneath them to participate in a tournament where their superiority would be questioned by so-called “inferior sides”.

There is an echo of this today as some arrogant Europeans are complaining of the sporting value of the Club World. While it is true that players in European teams have crowded calendars, they are all highly paid professionals, winning more than overworked doctors, nurses, teachers… who in fact contribute much more value to society than the little rich boys, who are increasingly difficult to feel sorry for (and none of whom we hear complaining about other things than the referees when they lose). 

Although I still believe that the tournament will be won by a European side, two fantastic results yesterday underlined that the quality of football is global, and does not just belong to European clubs: firstly, Brazilian Fluminense defeated CL finalists Inter Milan 2-0 in a good match where both teams had their chances, but Fluminense were simply better when it counted, and won on goals by the Argentine striker German Cano and the strongly named Hercules. 

On the day’s second match it was “not-so-mighty-any-longer” Manchester City to be defeated by the Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal in a thrilling match, where Bernardo Silva, with good help from his hand, brought the English side ahead early on, leading everyone to believe in a walkover. 

But by early in the second half Al Hilal were ahead 1-2 with two goals by Brazilians Marcos Leonardo and Malcom, before Erling Haaland equalised to 2-2 in a match that then had to go into extra time. 

Are Manchester City too tired after a long season where they reached only the FA Cup final? Or were they simply unable to match the Saudi side as the Senegalese veteran Kalidou Koulibaly brought them ahead? In fact, Phil Foden equalised but it was the young Brazilian Marcos Leonardo who with a strike in the 112th minute brough the final victory to Al Hilal. 

Note that Marcos Leonardo is only 22 years old, played one season in Benfica, and could still return to Europe sometime! 

All this said, it is refreshing to see European arrogance vanquished, and in my view the tournament has already showed its great value and potential for the future. Whoever wins it will go over in history, just like Uruguay in 1930.

Boca-River to the airport

Sometimes, as much as you like a team, you can be happy that football remains unpredictable and that arrogance is punished. As Boca Juniors went into the last round of the group stages in the Club World Cup they were to faced the unassuming Auckland FC, who had lost their first two matches 10-0 and 6-0 against Bayern Munich and Benfica respectively. Boca Juniors entered the match full of arrogant expectation, where they should rather have been hoping to play well against an amateur side.

Boca's awful arrogance was punished when the PE teacher, Christian Grey, equalised Boca's first half lead and gave the Kiwis an unexpected and delightful 1-1 and a rightful elimination of the Argentine giants, who appear to have forgotten that humility is the first step to greatness.

All in all a bad tournament for both Argentine clubs, as River Plate were also eliminated after losing 0-2 to Inter Milan, falling without grace against a far superior side. Two River players received red cards and just like Boca, River will not be missed in the Club World Cup.

Instead of meeting on the pitch, the two Argentine clubs will be in the airport. 

The World Cup underway

The Club World Cup is well underway in the USA. I have not been able to follow sufficiently, just seeing highlights, and watched the 1-1 between Real Madrid and Al Hilal and last night’s surprising and happy 2-1 victory of Inter Miami over FC Porto, with a victory goal by Lionel Messi on one of his signature free-kick goals. 

The idea of a Club World Cup is good; club football is much better than the national team football that suffers from excessive nationalism, while seeing how clubs across continents do against one another at the highest level has been something we have been waiting for, and which has been refreshing. Besides Bayern Munich’s 10-0 thrashing of Auckland, the level has been quite high and European sides have not been able to dominate as expected, and last night Europe’s best side, Paris St. Germain, lost 0-1 to Brazil’s Botafogo in yet another upset for European arrogance. 

All this said, the tournament also has problems: the opaque qualification process and playing times to fit TV viewing, but not the health of the players, who are playing in excessively hot weather (also, coming at the end of the season for many teams, the players arrive tired at the tournament). Also, we see the tournament take place in a non-footballing country where stadiums have been only half-full for many matches, and only many of the Latin American fans create anything that feel like a passionate atmosphere.

All this said the tournament appears here to stay, and I hope that FIFA will think about this tournament not only as a money machine, but also as a new scenario to get the best clubs to face one another. 

I hope.