By J Hutcherson (Dec 18, 2018) US Soccer Players – It’s a common occurrence this time of year. The Concacaf Champions League winners travel a long way to disappoint in the FIFA Club World Cup. This time, it was Chivas heading to the Emirates and losing their second round game 3-2 to Japan’s Kashima Antlers. That meant 5th-place against Esperance de Tunis. It took penalties, but Chivas lost again.
It’s easy enough to decide that the Club World Cup doesn’t matter, but it still requires teams to make the effort. Win a confederation club championship, and FIFA requires your presence wherever they’re hosting the Club World Cup. There’s no opting out, no passing it onto the runner-up or even lower down the line. FIFA wants their club tournament to count, pushing against anybody wondering what they’re doing in the club game to begin with.
There’s more to it, of course. We now know that FIFA has bigger plans for the Club World Cup. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that they plan to return to what they had in mind in the late 90s. A tournament that counts, that’s the high point on the club calendar. How they get there is on the agenda for the next FIFA meeting in Miami this March. A move to summer, an expanded field, and an insistence that this time it’s for real.
It’s worth remembering what happened at FIFA’s first Club World Cup back in 2000. With FIFA insisting on group play but only having six confederations, they were short two teams. The solution was to add Intercontinental Cup holders Real Madrid along with Corinthians to represent the host country. Corinthians, champions of nothing at the time, went onto become the first Club World Cup winners.
Necaxa represented Concacaf, getting out of their group ahead of Manchester United. They beat Real Madrid on penalties to become the third-best team in the world. Or something, since that first proof of concept only really showed the issues with a Club World Cup. Whatever momentum the tournament had stalled when FIFA didn’t stage the follow-up.
To the consternation of MLS fans, the LA Galaxy would’ve represented Concacaf. MLS did a good job collecting trophies in its early years. DC United was the Copa Interamericana winner in 1998, lost to time that they beat Vasco da Gama with both legs played in front of small crowds at Lockhart Stadium. That was it for the Copa Interamericana, mothballed after United’s win.
It’s almost like those trophies that should represent something great too easily show problems. Vasco da Gama won the championship that mattered back in South America. What happened in Ft Lauderdale was never going to take anything away. Fast-forward 20 years and it’s the same problem for the Club World Cup.
Maybe FIFA gets the buy-in this time. That’s the polite way of suggesting that maybe there’s enough money involved to change the tone of this tournament. Given the $25 billion with a b number attached to selling a revamped Club World Cup and a new global Nations League to a third-party promoter, things could change.
Is that good news for Concacaf? Considering how poorly Concacaf tends to do at world level, is increasing the importance of the tournament likely to help? The quick answer is probably not. As much as MLS presses for success in the Concacaf Champions League, it could come at a cost. An MLS team not contending at the Club World Cup is no different from a Liga MX team annually doing the same thing.
Soccer America’s Ian Plenderleith makes the case against proclaiming any team club world champion. Concacaf could treat that as a sympathetic read, a tournament designed to pit Europe vs South America without convincing many that the winner is the true champion of the world. Same problem, different year especially for Concacaf.
Pressure within the confederation already led Concacaf to significantly alter its Champions League. What once required all clubs involved participating in a lengthy group stage has now turned into MLS and Liga MX teams entering in the knockout round. For those leagues, it creates a tournament much closer to the old CONCACAF Cup format than UEFA’s Champions League model. Since one of those leagues always wins, there’s a monopoly at the top. Liga MX dominates Concacaf and then disappoints at the Club World Cup. This region isn’t competitive right now, and unfortunately for FIFA and their plans, it’s an open question what that really means.
J Hutcherson started covering soccer in 1999 and has worked as the general manager of the US National Soccer Team Players Association since 2002. Contact him at jhutcherson@usnstpa.com.
More from J Hutcherson:
- Atlanta wins the Cup, but what does that mean for MLS?
- What will the 2018 MLS Cup teach MLS?
- Soccer’s unnecessary reminder in the Copa Libertadores and the Champions League
- Super League fatigue
Logo courtesy of FIFA
