LAFC, already eliminated, finally scores a goal at Club World Cup
Wallace Yan scored in the 86th minute, giving Flamengo a 1-1 draw with already eliminated Los Angeles FC in the Club World Cup on Tuesday night.
Denis Bouanga scored LAFC's only goal of the tournament in the 84th minute.
Flamengo won Group D with seven points, one ahead of Chelsea.
The result marked the first Club World Cup match in Orlando to finish without a weather delay, as well as the highest attendance in Orlando so far, with 32,933 fans filling a 60,219-capacity Camping World Stadium.
Marlon appeared to score LAFC's first goal of the tournament in the 38th minute but the goal was disallowed on an offside call.
"Overall, we're quite happy. Of course it stings right now but... our players will realize they can be proud of this performance," LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said.
Flamengo secured a spot in the knockout rounds with a 3-1 win over Chelsea on Friday and will face Bayern Munich on Sunday at Miami Gardens, Florida. LAFC, last year's Major League Soccer's Western Conference regular season champion, finished with two losses and a draw.
"We had a great group stage. We achieved our objective in an early manner. Now we're thinking about Bayern and nothing but Bayern," Flamengo coach Filipe Luís.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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Brazilian clubs are upending the global order at the Club World Cup
'The graveyard of football is full of 'favourites',' warned Botafogo manager Renato Paiva in what has proven to be this summer's coldest line in sweltering United States heat. Gritty draws achieved by Palmeiras against Porto and Fluminense against Borussia Dortmund at the Club World Cup were enough to start a conversation. But the underdog heroics of Brazil's other two clubs have shaken up how we see club football across the world. For the first time since Corinthians shocked Chelsea in Yokohama in 2012, when some Brazilian fans sold their homes and vehicles to make the trip, the reigning Copa Libertadores champions have beaten the Champions League winners. Igor Jesus, who has been strongly linked to Nottingham Forest, scored the only goal of the game as Botafogo beat Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, a special setting for Brazilians given it is where they won the World Cup in 1994 and honoured the recently deceased Ayrton Senna. Advertisement Not to be outdone by their Rio rivals, Flamengo erased some of the hurt of losing to Liverpool in 2019 – when the Brazil forward Roberto Firmino scored the winner – by beating Chelsea 3-1 to guarantee a place in the knockouts. It was also the first time a Brazilian club has beaten a European side by two goals since Vasco da Gama embarrassed Manchester United in 2000. 'It was a remarkable victory, against a team that needs no introduction,' said Flamengo No 7 Luiz Araújo after the win against Chelsea. 'It has a special flavour not only because of the size of the opponent, but also because of all our preparation and dedication up until now. We deserved the result and we want more. Old heads will be quick to remind us that this is the usual order being restored. Throughout the 20th century, Brazilian sides regularly got the better of those from the Old Continent. Pelé scored five goals as Santos beat Benfica 8-4 over two legs in the 1962 Intercontinental Cup final; he scored four in the final the following year as Santos saw off the mighty Milan. In 1981, Flamengo thrashed Liverpool in the final; and in the 1990s São Paulo beat Barcelona's 'Dream Team' in 1992 and then dispatched the great Milan team of the era the following year. There were valid arguments for the Brasileirão being the strongest domestic league in the world. At the Club World Championship in 2000 – a similar tournament to the one in the United States this year – the best European sides visited Brazil and were soundly beaten. Manchester United, fresh off winning the treble, and Real Madrid did not qualify from their group. Two Brazilian clubs – Corinthians and Vasco da Gama – contested the final. Advertisement Despite the odd recent victory for Brazilian clubs – such as São Paulo beating Liverpool in 2005, Internacional overcoming Barcelona in 2006, and Corinthians winning against Chelsea in 2012 – the tide has turned against them in this century. A generation ago, when Brazilian clubs were under less pressure to sell their stars, players such as Rivaldo and Roberto Carlos did not move across the Atlantic until they were well into their 20s, keeping the league strong. Now, however, the clubs are financially mismanaged and have to sell their best talents for a relative pittance when they are teenagers. On top of that, TV rights money in Europe and the financial doping of state-run clubs provided further disparity. Related: 'Sorry, sorry, sorry': Jackson apologises for red card as Flamengo stun Chelsea At the Club World Cup, however, matters are being decided between the white lines and away from the boardroom. 'Football is played on the pitch, 11 against 11,' says Araújo. 'We have great teams in Brazil who are all capable of facing any team in the world. Flamengo always goes on the pitch to win, regardless of who is on the other side.' The facts don't lie. The four Brazilian teams are unbeaten in the tournament and top of their groups, having scored 14 goals and conceding just four. 'The victories show the strength of Brazilian football,' says Fluminense manager Renato Gaúcho, who dismisses the argument that European sides are tired after a long season. 'If a Brazilian club loses, they say: 'Ah, Brazilian football can't measure up to European football'. If they win, they say: 'Ah, European football is coming back from holiday'. That doesn't exist in football!' Advertisement He points out that the teams usually meet at the end of the calendar year, when Brazilian clubs are coming off an even more exhausting season. 'When European football catches Brazilian clubs having played between 70 and 80 games a year, nobody makes that excuse. Nobody says: 'Ah, the Brazilian team is tired'. When the European team crushes them, then they say: 'Ah, we really can't measure up to them.' Brazilian football has been having a great Mundial, overcoming powerful opponents and achieving results. This shows that money alone does not always win matches. 'Yes, there is no way to compete with the Europeans in terms of finances; they can sign great players and form very strong teams, but football is decided on the field. And, on the field, today, Brazilian football and the Brazilian people have to be very proud of what Brazilian clubs have been doing. When many people didn't believe this would happen, it is happening.' Palmeiras boss Abel Ferreira has also balked at the idea that European clubs are tired, saying the number of games 'excuse' is 'a lie' – and something that Brazilian clubs have had to cope with in the past. 'When we go to the Mundial, we're also at the end of the season. Porto has 50 games; Palmeiras has 36 already. And when we go to play in a Mundial, we'll have more than 70 games. These are excuses.' To their credit, Luis Enrique and Enzo Maresca did not make excuses and were very gracious in defeat. But not everyone has been as generous. Marc Cucurella said Chelsea struggled in the heat and the Borussia Dortmund substitutes ridiculously sat inside the dressing room for the first half against Mamelodi Sundowns when the temperature was just 30.5C. Advertisement Mauro Cezar, a hugely popular pundit in Brazil, says the European teams showed 'a certain arrogance' in not giving the tournament due respect. 'European teams entered this tournament without taking it as seriously as those from other continents. Of course, the heat is a hindrance for them, as is the fact that it's the end of the season. But if they have more money, better players and better coaches, they should compensate for these negative points by playing the minimum to overcome opponents who did not cause much concern, at least until the competition began. 'These arguments are valid, but they do not justify Paris Saint-Germain being unable to score a goal against Botafogo and barely threatening; Monterey drawing with Inter; Borussia Dortmund almost losing to Fluminense and conceding three goals to a South African team; Porto being dominated by Palmeiras; and Flamengo crushing Chelsea for practically the entire time. Claiming that the competition is not important does not justify this sequence of results against teams with much lower investment. Not facing this reality is yet another sign of arrogance.' Araújo, who saw the Chelsea players close up on the field, pushes back on the idea that they do not care about the tournament. 'No one goes on the field to lose; everyone wants to win,' says the Flamengo forward. 'The game against Chelsea was very competitive. Everyone defends their family, their shirt and the fans who are in the stands cheering them on.' The Flamengo manager Filipe Luís, who spent most of his playing career in Europe at Atlético Madrid, Chelsea and Deportivo, believes that Brazilian clubs have rebalanced the scales at the tournament but cannot compete with the very best 'eight or 10 clubs' from Europe. 'Apart from this elite, Brazilians are at the same level as the second European tier because of how we compete, how we understand the game, how we adapt to the climatic and field conditions. This elite is superior to us, but on the field anyone can win.' Advertisement As Cezar points out, the 'big difference between Europe and South America is money', with Chelsea alone investing €1.5bn in their squad. 'This amount is equivalent to the combined debts of several Brazilian clubs; the disproportion is enormous. Since the European leagues have more global visibility and money, they naturally attract the best coaches and players. Consequently, they are more tactically, technically and even physically developed in some cases. However, when a Brazilian club, like Flamengo, which defeated Chelsea with authority, organises itself financially, with good players within the South American reality, and has a coach with a modern mentality, although very young and without much experience, the result is what we saw in Philadelphia.' We are only at the group stage of the Club World Cup but, whether it's merely a Fifa cash grab or a holiday camp for the European teams, the tournament has served an unexpected purpose for Brazil. It has allowed Brazilians to take pride in the idea that not everything is always better over the water. This is an article by Tom Sanderson and Josué Seixas
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Warning shot for 2026: Club World Cup's brutal heat exposes a World Cup risk
In the 31 years since the United States last hosted the men's World Cup, a few things remain unchanged. Recent politics notwithstanding, the US population is diverse and air travel is relatively easy, so international games tend to attract supporters no matter where they live. As long as ticket prices are reasonable, a good crowd is a good bet. Advertisement Also – it still gets really hot in the summer. This, of course, is not news. It was a major subplot of the 1994 World Cup, it will be a major subplot of the 2026 edition – which the US will co-host with Canada and Mexico as the climate crisis makes heatwaves more likely – and it's a major subplot of the Club World Cup this summer. Related: Chelsea training cut short due to 'impossible' heat in Philadelphia The 19th-century Englishmen who wrote the first official Laws of the Game probably didn't anticipate the brutal heat that players often have to endure in a US summer, but everyone else should. Some rules of basic mathematics and climate are incontrovertible. A southern US venue plus a midday start time equals 22 players broiling in the sun, and it's odd that Fifa, in charge of the Club World Cup and next year's World Cup, does not appear to have foreseen that playing in blistering heat isn't much fun. So who benefits from this scheduling and heat? And who appears to worry about it the most? The answer to both questions: Europe. Advertisement Games aren't starting at noon and 3pm local time on weekdays for the benefit of fans in the US. Those games land neatly in the evening for European viewers. Yes, Fifa could schedule more games to start at 9pm local time when temperatures are much cooler, but that's well past midnight in Europe, which makes fans, broadcasters and sponsors less happy. But European teams aren't quite as happy about those earlier kick-offs. Consider Chelsea, who cut short their training session in the run-up to their game against Espérance. 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This suggests European teams will have a problem with temperatures this summer and at next year's World Cup; that Chelsea were at a disadvantage against the Tunisian champions even before they kicked off. And that's the reason why teams from Brazil, where the state leagues play in the southern hemisphere's summer, have impressed so far in this tournament. Perhaps that could be a function of the long-held stereotype that Latin America plays possession football to conserve energy in the heat while Europeans run around like maniacs, afraid that they'll freeze if they stand still too long. Advertisement But the limited data from major tournaments in the US doesn't support the notion that European teams are doomed to wilt in a North American summer. Seven of the eight quarter-finalists at USA 1994 were from Europe. Sweden helped themselves to a 3-1 win at high noon in Dallas against Saudi Arabia, a team, one would presume, who would cope a little better in the heat. Romania and Switzerland advanced from group play at the expense of a heralded side from Colombia. In all, 10 of the 13 European teams advanced to the knockout stage in 1994, while only two of the four South American teams made it out of the group stage. Concacaf, featuring the host USA and nearest neighbor Mexico, advanced both of its teams. Asia and Africa combined to have two of their five teams advance. That performance by Europe's best was an improvement from four years earlier on their home continent. In Italy, all four South American sides reached the knockout stage, along with Costa Rica and Cameroon. Eventual finalists Argentina were the only South American team in the quarter-finals, but Cameroon joined them. In group play, Scotland and Sweden found themselves eliminated by Brazil (expectedly) and Costa Rica (unexpectedly). These games, along with the decidedly mixed results in Qatar in 2022, aren't a particularly convincing sample size. And we have very little to go on for club games, aside from the pre-season friendlies in which European clubs sleepwalk their way through steamy matches that rake in money from US fans drawn to the stadiums by celebrity and cosplay. Advertisement This Club World Cup has seen a handful of notable upsets, but they don't seem attributable to the weather. Inter Miami beat Porto indoors in Atlanta. Botafogo stunned Paris Saint-Germain on a mild night in Pasadena, also the site of the Mexican side Monterrey's draw against Italy's Inter. Auckland City drew with Boca Juniors, but, if anything, it's the Argentinians who are more used to the heat. That leaves us with Chelsea, who lost to the Brazilian side Flamengo in warm Philadelphia. But is that a function of the weather, Flamengo being better than was first thought, or Chelsea not giving this tournament the same sense of urgency as their opponents? The heat also isn't hindering attendance, or teams' offensive power. PSG's four-goal outburst took place in the best-attended match, with more than 80,000 fans nearly filling the Rose Bowl in the one unusually hot Pasadena game. More than 70,000 fans gathered in Charlotte to see Real Madrid dispatch Pachuca 3-1 despite a temperature in the mid-90s fahrenheit. Plotting all of the games' scores, attendance figures and reported temperatures shows little to no correlation – if anything, attendance and scoring have gone slightly up as the temperature rises. It appears people turn up to watch good matches, and stay away from bad matches, no matter what the temperature. But it would be stupid to deny playing in extreme heat can be dangerous. At last year's Copa América, hosted by the US, an assistant referee collapsed during a match played in suffocating heat in Kansas City. Heat also limits players' ability to play full-throttle football. One vivid example was the 2008 Olympic men's soccer final, played at midday in the cauldron of Beijing's Bird's Nest so that the stadium would be cleared in time for the evening's track and field events. Temperatures in the heat-trapping venue soared well above 100F (38C), and players were granted hydration breaks, common today but novel at the time. The lone goal was assisted by one Lionel Messi, playing alongside his current Inter Miami manager, Javier Mascherano, which perhaps bodes well for Inter's chances in the knockout rounds. The scorer was Ángel Di María, who got another game with a heat index in the mid-100s on Tuesday in Charlotte with Benfica. Advertisement At some point, southern heat overcomes southern hospitality, and organizers can surely do better with scheduling. Why play a game at 3pm local time in Charlotte? 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Club World Cup betting offer: 30/1 on Juventus or Man City to score
Manchester City face Juventus in the Club World Cup on Thursday to decide who finishes top of Group G (Getty Images) Manchester City face Juventus in their final match of the Club World Cup group stages on Thursday in one of the biggest games at the tournament so far. And ahead of the game – which will decided who finishes top of Group G – NetBet are running a special enhanced odds betting offer. Advertisement The NetBet enhanced odds offer is an offer that provides odds of 30/1 on either team scoring during 90 minutes. It is very simple: sign up using the NetBet promo code CWC and make the bet. If there is a goal in 90 minutes from either side, you win at 30/1 odds – significantly better than the market price of 1/25, with extra winnings paid out as free bets. This offer is for new UK customers only, and cannot be used in conjunction with other NetBet welcome offers. Read on below for more detail. What Is the NetBet Club World Cup Betting Offer? This Club World Cup betting offer is a simple enhanced odds offer of 30/1 on a goal being scored in the match between Juventus and Man City on Thursday, 26 June. Advertisement Customers must use the NetBet promo code CWC and then make a minimum deposit of £10, and after that they must stake £1 on the 'Over 0.5 goals' market before kick-off. If a goal is scored, you win at 30/1. Winning punters get paid out at 1/25, with the rest of the funds made up of free bets. Free bets are paid out in the form of 2x £5 free bets to use on any sport, 2x £5 UFC Bets and 2x £5 bet builders for use on football. How to Claim the NetBet Offer In this section, we have provided step-by-step instructions on how to claim this Club World Cup price boost offer: Step 1: Sign up at NetBet (for UK customers only) via one of the links on this page. Advertisement Step 2: Customers must use the NetBet promo code CWC. Step 3: Make a first deposit of at least £10 via debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Trustly. Step 4: Place a £1 bet on Over 0.5 Total Goals – Juventus vs Manchester City. Step 5: Wait for a goal to be scored in the contest. Step 6: Winnings will be paid at normal odds in cash, then topped up in Free Bets to reflect 30/1 odds as 6 x £5 in free bets. Key Terms to Remember Below we've run through the key terms and conditions for this offer, though full T&Cs can be found on the NetBet website: The offer is only available for new UK customers. Offer is limited to one use per household, computer, and IP address. Customers must use the NetBet promo code CWC. The offer is available until 20:00 UK time on 26 June 2025. There is a minimum deposit of £10. There is a maximum stake of £1. Winnings are paid in cash plus free bets. The free bet portion expires in 7 days. There are no wagering requirements on rewards. Cashed out or void bets do not qualify. Why This Is One of the Best Club World Cup Offers The Club World Cup is one of the highlight events of the summer, and it's a great chance to secure free bets on a leading competition from one of the best betting sites. Advertisement This NetBet free bet promotion in particular is one of the best Club World Cup betting offers as it is a simple offer that is easy to access, with a quick sign-up process using the promo code CWC. It's a low-risk offer, with just £10 deposit needed to take part, and a £1 outlay on the over 0.5 goals market with a potential payout at odds of 30/1 if your wager is successful. In addition, the fact that there is no wagering on free bet winnings means that overall, the offer provides value for new customers on a easy to understand betting market. Finally, NetBet is fully licensed and regulated in the UK by the Gambling Commission, ensuring that players and their details are safe while gambling. Why Choose NetBet? NetBet is one of the most experienced betting sites in the business and has one of the most complete sportsbooks on the market, with a range of bets available on the full range of sports and excellent value on its betting odds too. Advertisement As well as being licensed and regulated by the UKGC, it is a trusted brand that offers plenty of free bets for existing customers, as well as good value on their welcome offer. In terms of user experience, the site has a user-friendly UI that is easy to navigate, as well as a good site layout, solid loading speeds and plenty of customer service options. NetBet is also one of the best Apple Pay betting sites and Google Pay betting sites accepting deposits via these methods for its Club World Cup betting offer. Responsible Gambling Bettors should always practice responsible gambling. When using gambling sites be aware that sports betting can be addictive. Please take steps to remain in control of your time and budget. Advertisement The same applies whether you're using new betting sites, slot sites, casino sites, casino apps, betting apps, or any other gambling medium. Even the most knowledgeable punter can lose a bet, so always stick to a budget and never chase your losses. It's particularly important not to get carried away by any free bets or casino offers you might receive, both of which are available in abundance on gambling sites, but must be approached with caution. You can stay in control by making use of the responsible gambling tools offered, such as deposit limits, loss limits, self-exclusion and time-outs. You may also want to visit the following free organisations to discuss any issues with gambling you might be having: Advertisement We may earn commission from some of the links in this article, but we never allow this to influence our content. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
