FIFA Club World Cup: Between romanticism and reality

On paper, the FIFA Club World Cup is a wonderful tournament. It offers a unique opportunity to continental heavyweight teams from different parts of the globe to face each other in a competitive setting.

If it did not exist, the likes of Club America, Al-Ahly Cairo, Kashima Antlers, etc. would have to settle for maybe sometimes playing each other and/or the giants from Europe as well as South America in meaningless friendlies, if indeed ever.

If it was not for this tournament, most of us would have never heard of TP Mazembe and we would not have witnessed their great triumph over Brazilian side Internacional of Porto Alegre in the 2010 semifinals.

Those are the matches, the stories and the emotions (that come with them) that make football the beautiful game. That being said, it depicts only one side of a more complicated reality. Mazembe's run to the final just mentioned above was such a headline, because it was so rare.

Upsets and surprises were and continue to be too few and far between at the Club World Cup.

The knockout tournament in its current form only exists since 2005. (Although there was a similar trial FIFA competition in the year 2000, which included a group stage.)

Before 2005, the Intercontinental Cup, a match between the winner of the UEFA Champions League and that of the COMNEBOL Copa Libertadores served to crown the unofficial club champion of the world.

Since then, the current tournament has been an extension of the Intercontinental Cup. That is, it gave the other continental champions a chance to intervene while giving the European and South American title holders a bye into each semifinal.

Since 2007, the tournament has begun with the winners of the host nation's domestic league facing the Oceanian champion for a place in the quarterfinals.

The problem with the competition is that every winner of the Club World Cup has been either European or South American. And since 2007, only once has a South American team lifted the trophy.

In December of 2020, the FIFA Club World Cup will be played one last time in its current format. From then on, it will only take place every four years with more teams and all will start from the same stage.

One can only hope that the tournament will have a more diverse winners list in the future. After all, Club football deserves a World Cup of its own!