Janne Palomäki writes that Real Madrid was too easy to become world champion of club teams.
Vinícius Júnior (right) celebrated Real Madrid’s fifth goal with Daniel Ceballos. PDO
There were many moments at the World Cup in Qatar, during which you just felt like shaking your head in disbelief.
One such came on the eve of the final, when Fifa president Gianni Infantino announced his desire to expand the World Cup tournament for club teams into a giant event of no less than 32 teams.
The umbrella organization had not bothered to ask the national federations or the different futs leagues whether organizing such a tournament would even be possible with the current match calendar.
The answer is of course: “not really”.
Fifa could also ask if anyone is interested.
Even then, the answer could be quite unpleasant. At least that’s the idea you get when you follow, what kind of attention did this year’s World Cup tournament for club teams get, which ended in Saturday’s final.
The final match at Rabat’s Prince Moulay Abdellah stadium ended with an easy 5–3 victory for Real Madrid.
Vinícius Júnior and Fede Valverde both scored a couple of memorable goals, and the Saudi surprise Al-Hilal was never able to challenge their bigger team. The numbers say no neither team cared about the defense that heavenly.
The title is already the fourth for the Whites in the last ten years.
However, winning the World Cup gold didn’t arouse any great passion even in the Spanish capital.
The story continues after the picture
Real Madrid fans had arrived in Morocco to celebrate the sure championship. PDO
According to Infantino’s dream, in 2025 there would already be 32 teams in this same tournament. In practice, that would mean that uneven matches between big European clubs and exotic opponents would already start in the opening week of the tournament.
It’s hard to believe that the popularity of the tournament would explode.
Between 1960 and 2004, the winners of the European Cup (later the Champions League) and its Latin American counterpart, the Copa Libertadores, met in the name of the Intercontinental Cup.
Those years also left a couple of milestones in futs history, of which Finns will certainly like to remember Jari Litmanen’s Ajax penalty shootout win over Grêmio in the 1995 final.
However, the Intercontinental Cup ended because the umbrella organization Fifa wanted its own wings to protect it and expand it into a bigger tournament.
And how did it end?
Morocco’s now-concluded World Cup tournament did not make headlines, although Al-Hilal surprised Flamengo in the semi-finals and made it to the final.
It just couldn’t do anything to the superior Europeans either. Teams from the old continent have now won the world championship ten times in a row.
The Real Madrid players didn’t even break a sweat with Al-Hilal.
Infantino’s idea looks even more stupid.
Fede Valverde (left) completed Real Madrid’s 2–0 lead after just over a quarter of an hour. PDO