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Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Club World Cup: Is European soccer's superiority being exposed as a myth?
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — European soccer's superiority had, throughout the 21st century, become self-evident; inescapable and irreversible; extreme and presumed. It was apparent in the salaries and prices of players, in the exodus of talent from the Americas and Africa, in the prestige of the UEFA Champions League and, twice per year, on the field. At the former Club World Cup, the seven-team version played each winter, since 2007, European teams played 34 games. They lost once. So they strolled into this expanded version, the 2025 Club World Cup, as runaway favorites. They negotiated outside appearance fees. Their supporters assumed they'd waltz to the latter stages, untouched. Advertisement Instead, halfway through the group stage, they've been humbled. In six games so far against South American opposition, they've lost two, drawn three, won one. They have also dropped seven points to the Saudi Pro League, MLS and Liga MX. Their early stumbles have delighted fans from other continents. They've surprised Western pundits. And they've ignited a combustible debate: Is European club dominance a myth? Or at least exaggerated? The two sides of the Europe-South America debate On one side, there are the raw results and the performances here over the past week. Flamengo didn't just beat Chelsea 3-1 on Friday in Philadelphia; at times, it pummeled the free-spending English Premier League giants. And Fluminense — Brazil's 13th best team last year — held Borussia Dortmund to a 0-0 draw and outplayed what was, a month ago, the hottest team in Germany. Advertisement In almost every single match between South American and European foes, there was evidence that the gap is slimmer than most Europeans (and non-Hispanic Americans) realize. Botafogo's upset of PSG was a so-called 'smash-and-grab,' but even smash-and-grabs require a certain level of physical, technical and tactical quality. Boca Juniors, similarly, bellied up to Bayern Munich and snatched a second-half equalizer, before conceding late. There was also Monterrey 1, Inter Milan 1; and Al Hilal 1, Real Madrid 1, 'a very balanced match,' as Al Hilal fullback João Cancelo said afterward. On paper, per Opta, these were games between the 9th best team in the world and the 81st; between No. 15 and No. 238; No. 4 and 132; No. 7 and 131; No. 6 and 130; No. 8 and 77. On the field, they looked very different, and begged the question: Is Opta wrong? Are the assumptions of European preeminence wrong? Were we all wrong? Flamengo players celebrate during their statement win over Chelsea at the 2025 Club World Cup in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Derik Hamilton) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) But on the other side of the debate, there are excuses — or at least other explanations, some legitimate. Advertisement There is the timing of this tournament, which falls at the end of 10-month European seasons, but mid-campaign for clubs from Brazil, Argentina and MLS. Whereas South American teams built up to the Club World Cup, weary European bodies and minds were ready to wind down. Most got a couple weeks off before reconvening with teammates 7-10 days before their Club World Cup openers. 'There are many tournaments that they've had to play, and perhaps they'll arrive with some fatigue,' Inter Miami forward Luis Suarez predicted before the competition began. 'I think there will be some surprise results.' There is also the suffocating U.S. summer heat, which has seemed to affect European teams more than others. 'We are used to the heat,' Al Hilal's Brazilian winger Malcom said after his team hung with Real Madrid on a humid 90-degree afternoon in Miami. Atlético Madrid's Spanish midfielder Marcos Llorente, on the other hand, called an 88-degree afternoon in Southern California 'impossible.' There is travel to which the Europeans aren't accustomed. There are games that kick off after all their friends and family back home are asleep. There are all sorts of confounding variables that preclude the Club World Cup from being an accurate point of comparison. Advertisement And most of all, there is the unavoidable sense, or narrative, that the European teams just don't really care. Many players do, to be clear. But do they care, with every last ounce of their being, like some of their South American counterparts do? There has undoubtedly been an intensity gap that has neutralized the quality gap, and helped some South American sides show well. To them, these games are among the most significant in recent club history. To the Europeans, the Champions League and, in some cases, their domestic league were and are more prestigious. Public attitudes toward the Club World Cup have also colored this excuse. While European fans have stayed home, and in some cases slept through games, supporters of South American and North African clubs have filled stadiums with balloons, flags, banners and unceasing noise. They've turned Palmeiras-Porto and Boca Juniors-Benfica and Flamengo-Chelsea into quasi-home games for the South American teams. That, too, is an equalizing factor. The conclusion None of that entirely explains the upsets. But there is nuance in the conclusion that the gap is somewhat narrower than many thought — because there are also gaps within Europe and within South America. Advertisement There is a massive gulf, for example, between Bayern Munich, which ultimately outclassed Boca here on Friday night; and Porto, which finished third in the Portuguese Primeira Liga, closer to fourth-place Braga than the top two. There is also a massive gulf between Palmeiras or Flamengo, the two most powerful teams in South America's richest league, and most of the other non-European teams at this Club World Cup. What we probably overestimated was the distance between the Portos and the Inter Miamis; between the Dortmunds and the Fluminenses; between the Benficas and Bocas; between the Chelseas and the Flamengos. Most of the teams Porto and Benfica play, weekend after weekend, are probably worse than the top half of MLS — and certainly worse than Boca, River Plate and much of the Brasileirão. Some of the Brasileirão, and certainly the top two, meanwhile, could compete with the top halves of the top flights in Germany, Italy, Spain and France. Advertisement There is still, though, a distance to the tippy-top. 'There is an elite in soccer that is superior,' Flamengo coach Filipe Luis, who played for Atlético Madrid and Chelsea, said Friday. 'Brazilian clubs are competitive at the second level of European football. Flamengo will not devalue themselves against any opponent. But the squads of the elite are better. That's a fact.'
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
MLS teams enter Club World Cup with a chance to make an impression, good or bad
The beach clubs of Dubai and Ibiza may be a little quieter this summer, at least when it comes to their headcount of European soccer stars. The off-season has been intruded upon by the Club World Cup with the likes of Real Madrid, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Inter in the United States for this summer's expanded tournament, which kicks off this weekend. Wayne Lineker and Salt Bae may get lonely. European enthusiasm for Gianni Infantino's latest harebrained scheme is low. The $131m bounty for winning the tournament has incentivised clubs at boardroom level (see Real Madrid spending many millions extra to sign Trent Alexander-Arnold in time to play), but players may not be as driven on the pitch. European fans may not even watch – the tournament is being broadcast in the UK on Channel 5, a network known more for daytime reality TV repeats than live soccer. It's being streamed worldwide on DAZN, a platform with wildly varying adoption levels across the globe. And yet the Club World Cup has an entirely different framing for the Major League Soccer clubs involved. After years of derision and ridicule from Euro-snobs, MLS can finally achieve legitimacy by holding its own against some of the best teams in the world. This is an opportunity to prove a point. Never before has MLS been pitted directly against so many European opponents in a competitive setting. The Seattle Sounders played in the pre-expansion Club World Cup in 2022, but lost their one and only match to Egypt's Al Ahly, never facing a Uefa opponent. This time, Seattle have games against Atlético Madrid and PSG while Inter Miami will face Porto, and Los Angeles FC are up against Chelsea. Of course, the Club World Cup has long had a 'Europe v the world' dynamic. The old tournament, going back to the days of the Intercontinental Cup, always mattered more to teams from the AFC (Asia), Caf (Africa), Concacaf (North and Central America) and Conmebol (South America), who saw Europe as the yardstick to measure themselves against. South American teams in particular put a lot of stock in these matches. Now that the 32-team Club World Cup includes 12 participants from Uefa, this dynamic may be somewhat diluted. The latter rounds will almost certainly be dominated by European sides. There will be five all-Uefa clashes in the group stage alone. Nonetheless, MLS will have the sort of platform it has craved for a long time. The world (at least some of it) will be watching. The problem for MLS is that the league's best teams aren't necessarily the ones participating in this summer's tournament. Concacaf Champions Cup finalists and Supporters' Shield pace setters Vancouver Whitecaps will be watching from home, as will the Eastern Conference leaders, the Philadelphia Union. There's no place for Wilfried Nancy's Columbus Crew, one of the best and most entertaining teams in the league over the last several years. Instead, MLS will be represented by an Inter Miami team who have conceded 17 times in the seven games they played in May, a Seattle Sounders outfit sitting sixth in the West and a LAFC side that only punched their ticket to the tournament through a contrived play-in match against Club América due to Club Léon's banishment by Fifa. North American soccer may not be putting its best foot forward. Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion Off the pitch, there are issues too. The Seattle Sounders wore shirts reading 'Club World Ca$h Grab' before the team's recent game against Minnesota United in protest over the way bonuses from participating in the Club World Cup are being distributed. 'Fifa's new tournament piles on to players' ever-increasing workload without regard to their physical wellbeing,' read a statement by the MLS Players' Association. 'Despite this windfall, the league has refused to allocate a fair percentage of those funds to the players themselves.' That prize money could also warp a league designed to maintain at least some sense of parity. Indeed, the $9.55m Inter Miami, LAFC and Seattle will receive for merely participating in the Club World Cup is more than Apple hands out in TV money to every MLS team each season. MLS's three Club World Cup representatives will have a disproportionate financial advantage over the rest of the league – or they would, if league spending rules allowed freer investment of that money into the first team. In so many ways, the expanded Club World Cup is a grotesque manifestation of what modern soccer has become, where money is both the only reason to be interested and the thing that numbs all. However, when the Seattle Sounders take to the field against newly crowned European champions PSG on 23 June, or when LAFC line up against Chelsea in Atlanta, the incentive for the MLS teams will be clear – they'll want to show they can take on Europe's finest. Realistically, though, the best measure for Inter Miami, LAFC and Seattle at the Club World Cup could come against non-Uefa opponents. Nobody really sees MLS as equal to the Premier League or any other 'Big Five' league. Matches against teams from Brazil, Egypt and Tunisia, on the other hand, are more winnable. This could be where MLS makes a statement. This may be where legitimacy is earned.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
PSG vs. Inter Milan in the Champions League final? Few expected that
It's a Champions League final few could have predicted. No Real Madrid. No team from the mega-rich Premier League. No rejuvenated Barcelona. And no Harry Kane-inspired Bayern Munich. Instead, it will be Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan facing off to be a somewhat unlikely winner of the biggest prize in club soccer. Neither club was among the favorites when the new-look, 36-team league phase of the competition rolled out in September. Indeed, PSG — without Kylian Mbappé and at the start of the post-galacticos era — guaranteed its place in the knockout stage only by winning its final game of the league phase. Months later, however, PSG has been widely admired as perhaps the most stylish team in the competition after ending the title hopes of a succession of English opponents in its latest bid for its first European title. Meanwhile, three-time champion Inter, another team lacking superstars but well-coached and with a never-say-die spirit, has gone under the radar once again like it did when reaching the final in 2023 and losing to Manchester City. Here's a closer look at the details of the final, the teams and their route to the title match: Where and when is the final? Munich's Allianz Arena will host the final on May 31. It's the fifth time the German city has staged the European Cup's title match. The first three — 1979, 1993, 1997 — were at Munich's previous home, Olympiastadion. The Allianz Arena was the host for Chelsea beating Bayern in a penalty shootout in 2012. American rock band Linkin Park will play the pre-match show. Prize money Real Madrid earned almost 139 million euros ($154 million) from its title-winning campaign in the Champions League last season and this season's winner should get more. Last year's prize fund of more than 2 billion euros ($2.22 billion) rose by 25% this season in the expanded format featuring more teams (36, up from 32) and more games (eight instead of six in the first stage). So expect PSG or Inter earn at least 150 million euros ($170 million) if the team winds up as champion. These coffers can be further boosted across June and July, when both teams will be in the United States for the expanded 32-team Club World Cup. Winning that competition could net PSG or Inter more than $100 million from the $1 billion prize money fund. Previous meetings The finalists have never met in the Champions League. That's a refreshing rarity for two big clubs who regularly compete in Europe. Route to the final PSG became the third French team to reach the European Cup final on two occasions, after Reims (1956 and '59) and Marseille (1991 and '93). PSG's other time was in 2020, when losing to Bayern Munich 1-0 in Lisbon. PSG's road to Munich has gone mostly through England. After seeing off fellow French club Brest in the playoffs, PSG has beaten Liverpool, Aston Villa and lastly Arsenal in successive rounds in the knockout stage — having also defeated then-Premier League champion Manchester City in a key victory in the next-to-last round of the league stage. Qualification was in the balance at that stage, with PSG having won just one of its first five league games only to win its last three. Inter was a two-time European champion before PSG was even founded in 1970, after titles in 1964 and 1965, while the Italian team added a third European crown in 2010. Unlike PSG, Inter qualified directly to the last 16 after finishing in fourth place, conceding just one goal in its eight league games. In the knockout stage, Simone Inzaghi's team overcame Feyenoord in the round of 16, Bayern in the quarterfinals and Lamine Yamal and Barcelona in a pair of epic legs in the semifinals. Contrasting ownerships PSG's relatively brief history was underwhelming until the club was bought in 2011 by Qatar Sports Investments. Then came the soccer boom in the capital and the arrival of trophy after trophy — well, at domestic level anyway. PSG has won 11 of the last 13 Ligue 1 titles but now the hardware the Qatari owners want is the Champions League. There will be extra satisfaction if it happens after a change in approach that has seen the club shed the superstars — Lionel Messi, Neymar and Mbappé — and rely on mostly young and hungry replacements, such as midfielder João Neves and forward Désiré Doué. It has been a more financially turbulent story at Inter, which has been owned by U.S. investment fund Oaktree since May last year after the eight-year tenure of Chinese retail giant Suning came to an end amid mounting debts. For three years before that, Inter was owned by a consortium led by Indonesian businessman Erick Thohir, which bought out Massimo Moratti. PSG has already clinched another French league this season, while Inter is still in a fight with Napoli to retain the Serie A title. ___ Steve Douglas is at ___ AP soccer:
