The matches of the seventeenth edition of the FIFA Club World Cup will kick off today, Thursday, in Qatar, which will also host the 2022 World Cup.
The opening match of the World Cup will bring together the Mexican Tigers, the CONCACAF champion, and Ulsan Hyundai, the South Korean champion, at the Ahmed bin Ali World Cup stadium in Al-Rayyan, Qatar.
The winner of this match will be on a date in the semifinals, with the representative of South America, the Brazilian team Palmeiras, the champion of “Copa Libertadores”, next Sunday.
The day will also witness an Arab confrontation between Al-Ahly, the African champion, and the Qatari host, Al-Duhail.
The winner of the Arab “Derby” in the semi-finals will face Bayern Munich, next Monday.
The final match and the match for the third and fourth places will be held on Thursday 11 February.
The Club World Cup was previously known as the Club World Championship (in the 2000 and 2005 editions). It is an international football tournament that was recently introduced by FIFA, to replace the Intercontinental Cup.
In 1999, FIFA announced the creation of a new tournament in which all the continental federations would participate, to impart a kind of democracy and the principle of equal opportunity, to find out the strongest club in the world every year, which was not available in the previous tournament, which was limited to the participation of a league champion. The European champions and the Libertadores Cup champion, which made the clubs, the champions of other continental confederations, invoke FIFA that the title of best club in the world is limited to two continental confederations only.
The FIFA Club World Cup was held for the first time in 2000 and did not take place between 2001 and 2004 due to the collapse of FIFA’s marketing partner. The tournament has been held every year since 2005. The tournament has hosted Brazil, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Qatar, and the best clubs in the world that have won the Champions League on their continent participate in it, namely: the winners of the Champions League, the Copa Libertadores, the AFC Champions League, the African Champions League, the Oceania Champions League, and the League CONCACAF champions, in addition to the club’s champions, from the host country.
Ten different clubs have won 16 copies of the tournament, and seven of them went to the two poles of Spanish football, Real Madrid, the record holder for the number of title wins, with a score of four times (2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018), and Barcelona, the title winner. Three times, followed by Brazilian club Corinthians, with two titles.
The following is the ranking of the clubs winning the FIFA Club World Cup:
1- Real Madrid (Spain) four times (2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018)
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2- Barcelona (Spain) three times
3- Corinthians (Brazil) twice
4- Sao Paulo (Brazil)
5- Internacional (Brazil)
5- Milan (Italy)
6- Inter Milan (Italy)
7- Manchester United (England)
8- Liverpool (England)
9- Bayern Munich (Germany)
Six clubs are competing for the title of the current version of the World Cup, after the withdrawal of Auckland City, New Zealand, the Oceania champion, due to travel restrictions due to the outbreak of the Corona virus epidemic, and the six clubs that will compete in this exceptional version of the World Cup are: Al-Duhail Qatar (the host), and Al-Ahly of Egypt (the African champion) ), Bayern Munich (European champion), South Korean Ulsan Hyundai (Asian champion), Mexican Tigers (CONCACAF champion), in addition to the South American representative of the Brazilian team Palmeiras, the champion of “Copa Libertadores”.
Since the launch of the first edition of the Club World Cup, which began in 2000, 67 teams have participated in the tournament, and the highest participation rate is the one who withdrew from the current version of the tournament, Auckland City, with a score of 9 times, and Real Madrid and Al-Ahly of Egypt come behind him by 5 previous times, and the Egyptian team will surpass The Spanish giant after participating in the new version.
Source: Agencies
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