Bayern Munich 10 Auckland City 0 – Bundesliga giants run up record-breaking scoreline against part-timers

New York Times

17 hours ago

Bayern Munich vs Auckland City lived up to its billing as a mismatch for the ages as the kings of German football romped to the biggest victory in Club World Cup history in Cincinnati.
Jamal Musiala led the way with a second-half hat-trick while Kingsley Coman, Michael Olise and Thomas Muller all scored twice as Bayern made short work of their part-time opponents from New Zealand, with Sacha Boey and Thomas Muller also getting themselves on the scoresheet at TQL Stadium, with Bayern's 10-0 win surpassing Al Hilal's 6-1 victory over Al Jazira in 2022.
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Bayern are the early pacesetters in Group C after an emphatic tournament-opening triumph, with Boca Juniors and Benfica meeting in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Sunday (kick-off 6pm ET/11pm UK time).
Here, Seb Stafford-Bloor and Jordan Campbell break down the main talking points from a record-setting day in the Club World Cup, including a muted atmosphere and a protest banner held up by fans in the stands.
The expectation was that Vincent Kompany may consider Auckland's semi-pro status and name a slightly weaker team to usher Bayern into the tournament.
Unfortunately for Conor Tracey in goal, who is on unpaid leave from his job at a veterinary supply warehouse, the Belgian was in no mood for going easy on the New Zealanders.
He named more or less a full-strength XI and it was no surprise that they went on to set a new tournament record for the margin of victory.
Before the newly-expanded edition this summer, Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal held the record having beaten UAE club Al Jazira 6-1 in 2022.
The other heaviest scorelines include Esperance beating Al Sadd 6-2 in 2019, Monterrey beating Al Ahly 5-1 in 2013, Barcelona beating Santos 4-0 in 2011 and Manchester City beating Fluminense 4-0 in 2023. On Sunday afternoon, Bayern became the first team to ever score seven goals in one game at a Club World Cup.
Having gone 4-0 up inside 20 minutes there may have been the expectation that the Bundesliga giants would take their foot off the gas, but the competition's five-substitute rules added insult to injury as more top-class players came on looking to fill their boots.
From the very start it was clear that this was going to be a cricket score. Watching such an uncompetitive game take place at a competition billed as the 32 best teams in the world is a clear contradiction and calls into question whether it makes a mockery of the tournament.
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It will have doubtlessly felt a tad embarrassing for Auckland's players, even if they know they are part-timers up against elite multi-millionaires with access to the best facilities, but the alternative argument is that this is what true worldwide representation means.
In the World Cup, there have been heavy defeats, so it is not exactly new to see such mismatches. Germany lost to Brazil 7-1 in the 2014 World Cup after all but the last game where a team finished in double figures in a World Cup match was in 1982 when Hungary beat El Salvador 10-1.
Jordan Campbell
They're an amateur side from New Zealand whose home stadium holds 5,000 fans, most of whom stand, and whose costs to this competition ran to over twice the club's annual turnover. Yet Auckland City are actually a Club World Cup veteran.
This is the 13th time they have qualified and the 12th time they have taken part (they were unable to attend during the pandemic) and they are here by virtue of being the champions of Oceania — that is: winners of the OFC Champions League.
They have always been a minnow at this level but back in 2014, they actually won a bronze medal, beating LigaMX's Cruz Azul on penalties in a third-place play-off.
Confusingly, they are not the best-known or biggest team in their own city — that's Auckland FC, a fully-professional franchise who compete in the Australian A-League and who actually won the competition in their first year of existence. And because they compete in Australia, they are unable to take part in the OFC Champions League, as are the other major New Zealand franchise: Wellington Phoenix.
That leaves Auckland City FC competing with clubs from 12 other countries in the region, including New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands.
All the players who represented them today have full-time jobs and needed to take annual leave just to make this trip. A few will be on unpaid leave before they get home and, sadly, a couple of first-team regulars were unable to get the time off at all, meaning that they had to stay at home.
Seb Stafford-Bloor
What a strange atmosphere. The pan around the stadium before the game revealed clusters of empty seats in every part of the ground, but an attendance of 21,152 was not too bad.
Bayern are among the most popular European teams in the U.S. — they have more official fan clubs than any other club in North America — and there were plenty of red shirts to be seen. So far so good.
But it was so quiet and that will be an issue this competition has to battle. Being able to hear individual conversations over the broadcast microphones is hardly the tenor of a blue-chip sporting occasion.
Admittedly, the dynamics of this specific contest were unusual and under any circumstances, it would have been difficult to know how to respond. No doubt that this was a factor and there is little anyone can do about a natural lack of tension.
But perhaps it was also indicative of the tournament itself. It's new. Nobody knows what to make of it or what anything they see really means, and without partisan crowds, with the stadium instead full of people not used to attending games, the mood was distinctly pre-season.
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That's not necessarily a criticism — more just something that the Club World Cup will need to defeat if it's to feel like more than a glorified friendly competition.
Seb Stafford-Bloor
The Bayern fans did bring a little bit of the traditional matchday experience with them, with a banner referencing the notorious Baur Au Lac episode, in a protest against FIFA.
German football is very political and conscious of both social issues and problems afflicting the sport at large, meaning that few Bundesliga games pass without a banner protest against something.
Naturally, today they turned their guns on FIFA, with a banner reading: '10 years (since) Baur Au Lac. World football is more poorly governed than before. Smash FIFA!'
For those new to these parts, Bar Au Lac was where, in 2015, various members of FIFA's executive committee were arrested in a dawn raid at a Swiss hotel.
Following an investigation into long-term corruption that was led by Loretta Lynch, the then-US Attorney General, several FIFA grandees were led away.
It ultimately led to a slew of lifetime bans and the fall of Sepp Blatter, Gianni Infantino's predecessor as the organisation's president. Blatter's departure was seen at the time as a turning of the page for global football governance and the moment when the game threw open the windows, bringing in a new era of transparency. Within that context, Infantino was seen as an agent of change.
It's not entirely which specific aspects of FIFA governance the banner was taking aim at, but the Qatar World Cup was extremely unpopular in Germany, as was the awarding of the 2034 competition to Saudi Arabia. The Club World Cup has won few friends, too.
Seb Stafford-Bloor
Friday, July 20: Boca Juniors, Club World Cup group stage (Miami), 9pm ET, 2am Sat UK
Friday, July 20: Benfica, Club World Cup group stage (Orlando), noon ET, 5pm UK