Club World Cup Group C: Will Bayern Munich reign supreme and can Auckland City's amateurs spring a shock?

New York Times

2 days ago

Two of European football's most storied teams. An icon of the South American game. The side whose third-place finish at the 2014 Club World Cup stunned the world.
Auckland City, Bayern Munich, Benfica and Boca Juniors form Group C of the 2025 Club World Cup, offering ample intriguing storylines. Is Bayern built to be this reformatted tournament's first champion? Will Benfica benefit from one final dose of Angel Di Maria's heroics? Can Boca overcome a recent dip to become a dark horse? Could the New Zealanders wreak similar havoc to 11 years ago?
Here, The Athletic picks out the group favorites, the fun facts, and the storylines to watch.
(All kick-offs ET/BST)
June 15: Bayern Munich vs Auckland City (Cincinnati — 12pm/5pm)
June 16: Boca Juniors vs Benfica (Miami; 6pm/11pm)
June 20: Benfica vs Auckland City (Orlando; 12pm/5pm)
June 20: Bayern Munich vs Boca Juniors (Miami; 9pm/2am June 21)
June 26: Auckland City vs Boca Juniors (Nashville; 3pm/8pm)
June 26: Benfica vs Bayern Munich (Charlotte; 3pm/8pm)
Bayern — as is customary for any competition the German club enters.
That said, Bayern was jolted back into proactivity last season when Bayer Leverkusen snapped its 11-season title streak. In came new manager Vincent Kompany to provide a more proactive and aesthetic play style, with the level-headedness that typified the Belgian's playing career at Manchester City helping ease tensions in a high-pressure locker room.
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With much of the old guard that kicked off the decade of dominance phasing out, Kompany leaned heavily on the next generation. Jamal Musiala's game made the proverbial leap before his Bundesliga-season-ending injury — fear not, he's back in training — while Dayot Upamecano established himself as a capable lead center back. Michael Olise flourished after joining from Crystal Palace and Harry Kane continued to amass goals and assists.
Between the 34-game Bundesliga campaign and their 14 Champions League fixtures, Bayern dictated the proceedings of its matches like nobody else in Europe's top levels.
In total, 26 clubs from the Bundesliga, Premier League, La Liga and Serie A were involved in either the Champions League or Europa League. Nobody kept a higher average rate of possession than Bayern's 67.2 per cent. The team's goal difference of +80 was second only to Barcelona (+82), while a 76.2 expected goal differential was way ahead of second-placed Barca (61.5). Bayern also had the highest field tilt of the sample, a suffocating 76.2 per cent.
The secret to this club's success isn't just keeping and regaining more attacking touches than your opponent. Under Kompany, Bayern works to keep the ball away from the other team by amassing middle-third touches.
Just under half of its time on the ball in the Bundesliga and Champions League (48.6 per cent) came in the middle third, while 31.1 per cent of touches came in Bayern's attacking third. It's an approach that keeps the defensive third at the other end of the field relatively untrampled, and one that offers a talented and balanced squad plenty of time to find an avenue to exploit a defense.
In the early stages of a 4-0 win over Hoffenheim in its Bundesliga finale last month, Bayern aggressively worked to capitalize on an early goal by putting the game out of reach.
As shown above, in build-up, Kompany's men ventured into a 2-4-4, mostly keeping their midfielders between the central third and the half-spaces while width came from a pair of touchline-hugging wingers.
This sets up a varied number of avenues through which to provide Kane and others with service, while there's almost always a team-mate at the ready to converge if possession is lost.
Although Benfica and Bayern are longtime established royalty in Europe, their meetings have been dreadfully one-sided. Bayern has yet to lose in 11 matchups with the side from Lisbon, Portugal's capital, winning eight of them.
In that respect, perhaps there's more intrigue to mine from Benfica's opener against Boca Juniors.
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The Argentine Football Association has made a targeted effort to establish a presence in the United States even before Lionel Messi's arrival, opening a headquarters in Miami in 2023 and building a training center and regional youth academies. Boca Juniors' presence in this competition should only further bolster that outreach as one of the nation's most storied clubs will play its first and second group matches in the South Floridian city.
In this season's Champions League, Benfica played a more direct game than most and was happy to cede the balance of possession to the opponent. It launched 3.1 direct attackers per game, seventh among the 36 league phase entrants, while its field tilt of 41.1 per cent was 11th-leanest. Benfica still managed to attempt 14 shots per game, generating 2.2 'big' chances per game (11th) for a 'big' chance creation-rate of 21 per cent (12th).
This game model helps mask an uncharacteristic lack of decisive quality in the final third; for a club where the youth academy regularly turns out promising attacking starlets and which can lure some impressive players to Lisbon, a 68.6 per cent pass completion rate in the final third was a poor 29th in the 36-strong field.
So while Benfica had no issue getting the ball into advanced areas, the players often looked unsure of how to resolve those chances. Still struggling to replace Goncalo Ramos after his summer 2023 departure, last summer saw Benfica lose fellow goal threats David Neres and Marcos Leonardo, as well as dynamic midfielder Joao Neves. While summer acquisition Vangelis Pavlidis provided a credible goalscorer, leading the team with 29 goals from 53 matches in all competitions, Kerem Akturkoglu and Orkun Kokcu were more inconsistent alternatives.
So while Benfica will hope for a parting gift of quality before Argentina's 2022 World Cup-winner Angel Di María returns to Rosario Central back home to end his career, this team's uneven nature could open the door for Boca to spring an upset.
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At its best, Boca will look to break quickly.
Chile international Carlos Palacios is the club's current playmaking savant, pulling the strings behind the veteran strike tandem of Edinson Cavani and Milton Gimenez. Most impressive is Boca's decisiveness in breaking lines when the team is really whirring, as Defensa y Justicia learned back in March:
While it takes just 12 seconds for Boca to turn a pass from goalkeeper to center back into a run-of-play goal, the time splits of the move's build-up are the real trick. For five seconds, Lautaro Di Lollo dwells on the ball, drawing Defensa's attention and suggesting this will be a measured approach upfield. Then, he spots a straying left-sided opponent and strikes: one pass up the line, another into space for Palacios to collect, and a squaring cross into the stride of Cavani's far-post run.
It's an approach that can help Boca break down Benfica, especially if it commits numbers going forward in immediately preceding sequences.
Boca has struggled in the early stages of 2025, however, as the back-half of the pitch can end up being overrun by nimble opponents. Timeless midfielder Ander Herrera helps get the ball forward from midfield, while a defense anchored by Marcos Rojo and Cristian Lema (both 35 years old) can still force attackers off the ball, but lacks the requisite mobility. At 21, Di Lollo provides youth as an alternative to Lema, but is more raw defensively.
An underdog with undeniable attacking mettle against a favorite that can run out of ideas in the final third? It's a fixture that could set the tone for every game that follows on Group C's second and third matchdays.
It's Bayern, with those 34 Bundesliga titles, six European Cups/Champions Leagues and two Club World Cup triumphs. But you've read enough about them, so let's shift the focus to the Southern Hemisphere.
No club in Argentina has won more than Boca, a trophy haul headlined by 35 Primera Division and 17 domestic cups. Despite six Copa Libertadores triumphs, the club is in the midst of a long dry spell in that competition, last winning continental honors in 2007.
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Nevertheless, Boca has a cachet in the world's game reserved for classic clubs with a knack for developing top young talents. The long list of former Boca players includes Diego Maradona, Carlos Tevez, Fernando Gago, Gary Medel, Juan Roman Riquelme (now club president), Hugo Ibarra and Severino Varela.
The rivalry with Buenos Aires neighbor River Plate (called the Superclasico) is also arguably the best in club soccer, neck-and-neck with El Clasico in Spain. Although River has a claim to being the better club since the turn of the century, Boca still owns a narrow edge, winning 91 matchups to River's 89, with 85 draws driving home just how balanced their games often are. Certainly, few fanbases loathe each other more.
For those hoping for a stateside Superclasico during the Club World Cup, the draw — which has River in Group E — wouldn't pit them against each other in the knockout rounds until a semifinal or final.
Antonio Silva's breakthrough came sooner than Benfica expected, with injuries forcing the then-teenage defender into its lineup in the spring of 2023. The trial by fire provided a young center back with plenty of steel, wagging a finger at Italian veteran Leonardo Bonucci in a Champions League fixture while earning an extension through 2027.
Now aged 21, Silva is still putting it all together at a youthful age for his position. A longtime fixture of transfer rumors, with his most recent suitors including Real Madrid and Juventus, Silva remains part of Benfica's core and is established with Portugal's national team. Still, the rapid rise of Dean Huijsen over the past year has seen Silva lose some status as the game's hottest young defensive prospect — and this tournament could be a worthy showcase of his considerable prowess.
Silva was primarily Benfica's off-ball center back, with Nicolas Otamendi serving as the possessive focal point. Given his exceptional mobility, Silva's role was to monitor opponents' more nimble forwards and offer a good ball-progressing option with both his passing and his carrying.
As one of Portugal's true giants, Benfica is usually able to wrestle the balance of domestic matches to its will. Otamendi and Silva aren't often overworked defensively, so are able to dictate the tempo of proceedings from the back. The difference is that, at age 37, Otamendi has shown he can shift into that grittier approach to the role; at this stage of his development, Silva's defending chops have arguably waned from those head-turning performances in 2023.
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In this season's Champions League, Benfica survived the league phase and first set of playoffs before falling to Barcelona in the round of 16. In 724 minutes across nine appearances, Silva won 61.3 per cent of his aerial duels — just above the tournament's qualified center back average of 60.3 per cent — but had a paltry 38.5 per cent 'true' tackle win-rate. Rather than launching into tackles and interceptions, much of his time was spent recovering loose balls and making clearances.
For a player who's so proactive in possession, it's staggering to see how flat-footed his defensive metrics shook out in continental play. With two years left on his deal and Huijsen already having made his move from Bournemouth to Real Madrid, all eyes will be on Silva to see how he handles another major tournament.
Containing Kane and Cavani could certainly help give a jolt to his chances of joining a bigger club.
How much fight Auckland City can pose, 11 years after the club's previous generation finished third in the Club World Cup.
Coming into the tournament, few teams were expected to shuffle their roster more for this tournament. After qualifying in early December, news broke that City would be hoping to temporarily lure away players from crosstown A-League outfit Auckland FC. Ultimately, their squad has yet to take on a loanee at the time of writing.
It was a sensible idea — after all, they're the only side to qualify for this Club World Cup despite being amateurs.
Nevertheless, Auckland City is a mainstay of the Club World Cup. Its 12 appearances are a tournament record, the just desserts of having won the Oceania Champions League title 11 times in the past 14 years.
Unfortunately, they'll be without head coach Paul Posa during the tournament build-up, for personal reasons. It's unclear whether he'll be back once the games begin.
No matter what, they may be up against it with such a stacked draw.
You'll have to forgive Benfica's travelling party if they arrive in the United States thinking the tournament's host nation is suddenly behind them.
On February 28, 1904, 24 men gathered to launch Sport Lisboa, a club that would acquire Group Sport Benfica and adopt its name four years later. In that initial meeting, they came up with some crucial identifiers which have followed the club for well over a century. They established red and white as the club's now-synonymous kit color-set. They also decided to establish a Latin motto — 'E pluribus unum' ('Out of many, one').
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Well, they weren't especially clever about finding a unique motto. The United States of America had added 'E pluribus unum' to the newly-launched national seal in the year 1782, a mark that still adorns presidential podiums, coins and the New York state flag.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)