Sunday, June 8, 2025

Getting ready for our NEW summer tournament

A diagram of the bracket draw for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025

 Bracket for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025

FIFA's big new-format Club World Cup tournament gets under way next Saturday evening (8pm EST in Miami) - intriguingly, a breakfast kick-off in my part of the world.

There seems to be remarkably little (good) information about it online as yet, but here's the best of what I've been able to turn up over the past couple of days.


Here's the official schedule of games.


And here's a link for accessing full coverage on streaming service DAZN (allegedly FREE, but I bet there's a catch to that...).

This is Goal magazine's list of the qualified teams, and an explanation of the seeding system (FIFA's own team list doesn't seem to include any actual information about them!); and here's a bit more information on how they qualified.

A graphic of the 4 'seeding pots' for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup - from the UK's 'Goal' magazine

Club World Cup seeding pots


And Yahoo Sports - amazingly - appears to have the best ranking of teams' likely prospects so far.


More detailed team and player information, including predicted lineups, is available on Fantasy Football Community and Fantasy Football Scout.


I'm actually quite excited about this tournament. There are things to have misgivings about: it's probably too big, the quality of football is likely to be undermined by having so many makeweight, punchbag teams in it, and it's bound to have a detrimental impact on sharpness and stamina for many players at the start of the next domestic season. But it is, on the whole, a good idea, I think: a bigger spectacle, a more inclusive tournament - and moved away from being an annual event (now, once every four years, like the major international tournaments) plonked in the middle of the domestic season - lots to like about all of that.

[And, of course, we'll ALL be rooting for the plucky Kiwis of Auckland FC - who are amateurs!!]


BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!!!


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