After Chelsea’s surprising and emphatic 3-0 victory over PSG on Sunday, July 13 at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup final, it is a good time to assess the competition.
The tournament was a unique event, and given that it involved 32 teams and lasted almost a full month, it was the first of its kind.
There were certainly many surprising positives, but also plenty of negatives about the competition that all need to be discussed and analysed, ahead of next summer’s national team World Cup and before a possible 2029 edition of this tournament.
The Positives
The tournament was far more exciting and unpredictable than most of its European critics had expected.
Even many who liked the idea of this competition would still likely have expected eight UEFA teams to contest the quarter-finals.
Instead, only five of the original 12 European sides made the final eight. Special praise must be given to the four Brazilian teams involved, namely Fluminense FC, Palmeiras, Botafogo, and CR Flamengo.
All of them advanced at least past the group stage, with Palmeiras reaching the quarterfinals and Fluminense even making the semifinals.
Meanwhile, the Saudi side Al Hilal certainly deserve an honourable mention, given that they were the last team standing in the Club World Cup from outside the two major confederations of UEFA and CONMEBOL.
Simone Inzaghi’s men reached the quarterfinals, knocking out one of the tournament’s contenders, Manchester City, in the Round of 16.
That 4-3 extra time victory over the Citizens was hands down the match of the tournament. Yet, the team did all of that without the services of their star striker Aleksandar Mitrović, who was injured for the competition, despite having been listed on Al Hilal’s tournament squad.
Another obvious positive of the Club World Cup was the clash of teams that would normally never compete against each other. With that, we saw the differences of cultures, playing styles, and even unique ways that fans around the world support their teams.
These things all enrich the beautiful game without a doubt. However, despite the positives, the tournament also had several downsides and annoyances.
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The Negatives
With Chelsea and PSG, two European teams reached the final, somewhat predictably.
Even if European dominance was not as strong as many had feared, it certainly came through at the business end of the Club World Cup. So, when it came down to it, the doubters were still somewhat right.
But beyond that, several other things did not go well in the tournament. For one thing, the attendance figures seemed quite discouraging at times.
Some kickoff times were quite bad for the working population inside the United States. At the same time, several matches were interrupted by thunderstorms, often for several hours.
That was particularly annoying for those of us in the Eastern Hemisphere, especially for those who decided to either stay up or to get up in the middle of the night to watch their teams play.
Then there were also the downright silly attempts at assimilating football to the American NFL, by having the players walk into the stadium individually, or the whole spectacle before the kickoff of the final on Sunday.
The halftime concert during the break of the title game, meant to be similar to that of the Super Bowl, was also unnecessary. Football in the United States is already popular enough.
There is no need to try to popularise it further by trying to cheaply appeal to American culture. Beyond that, such silly attempts to do so will not work anyway.
In any case, from a Bayern Munich perspective, the Club World Cup was very negative, because Jamal Musiala‘s gruesome injury during the quarter-final with PSG overshadowed everything else.
Final Thoughts
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup was an overwhelming success overall, but the negatives were still part of the experience, and knowing the FIFA leadership, they are unlikely to learn from them very much.
Main Photo
Credit: IMAGO / Sportsphoto
Recording Date: 13.07.2025