Being world champs matters
THIS TOURNAMENT HAS BEEN RIDICULED AND TREATED WITH CONTEMPT BUT. . .
Along the Corniche, workers were busily preparing for Qatar national Day. Temporary stands had been erected along Doha’s main waterfront promenade and huge floral displays were being planted in the nation’s colours, maroon and white. It was 6.30am.
Today, the area will be closed to traffic for a giant parade before the royal family. There will be aerial and sea shows, culminating in a grand firework display scheduled for 8pm.
With liverpool kicking off against Monterrey at the Khalifa International Stadium 30 minutes later, it could be argued that FIFA’s Club World Cup isn’t even the biggest deal in the country where it is taking place. Yet that does the competition a disservice, as often happens, particularly in England.
late to the World Cup, late to the European Cup, it is no surprise that the Club World Cup continues to be regarded contemptuously by some back home. Jurgen Klopp fielded several questions about priorities yesterday, from foreign journalists who have picked up on negativity from fans and in the English media.
liverpool, it was argued, should have played their best team in the league Cup at Aston Villa, and left the irrelevance of the Club World Cup to its youth and reserves. This would mean designating the chance to be crowned world champions as less important than the quarter-final of a competition that began with a draw in a Morrisons supermarket in Colindale. If you think that is barmy, don’t worry, you are not alone.
Everything about the Club World Cup suggests it will continue to grow in prestige and, judging by its roll call of blue chip sponsors, worth, too. It used to be a challenge match between the champions of Europe and South America. Then FIFA opened it up to all continental winners.
By 2021 it will be a 24-team tournament taking place across three weeks in China. There will be eight teams from Europe, made up of Champions league and Europa league winners, with a maximum of two per country. As it stands, liverpool and Chelsea will both be present.
So just as the European Cup in its infancy became a competition close to a European super league, and the World Cup has expanded to include 48 nations in 2026, so FIFA’s plans for the Club World Cup indicate it will one day be among the most significant titles in football. And liverpool have never won it, in three attempts.
There are not too many gaps on the honours board at Anfield, but the Club World Cup is one. Manchester United have ruled the world twice, standing alone among English clubs. Beaten by Flamengo in 1981, by Independiente in 1984 and by Sao Paulo in 2005, liverpool are three-time losers and the recollections of former players suggests the club were as guilty as any critic of not giving the competition its due.
Booze on the plane, and idiosyncrasies on the ground have marked their various forays. Bob Paisley kept the 1981 team on English time in Japan, meaning breakfast was taken at 6pm, dinner served at 10am. The South American clubs seemed to want it more back then, too. They would arrive weeks early while European qualifiers would play at the weekend, then fly. Their fans cared more, as well. Even now, Flamengo are expected to have many more here than liverpool. There was pandemonium in Rio De Janeiro as the team coach left for the airport, manic banks of supporters 10 deep on either side.
So respect is due. not least because liverpool’s success under Klopp is built on the efforts of players from the continents that are being airily disparaged. If liverpool’s hierarchy had prioritised the Carabao Cup fixture, what message would that send to Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and naby Keita; or Alisson, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino? That your football, your nations, your clubs do not matter. That the world outside parochial England and Europe is beneath us.
Internacional, Fluminense, Horoya AC, Figueirense, Al Mokawloon — these are the clubs that helped form the players that have propelled liverpool to the pinnacle. How arrogant would it be to behave, then, as if their football did not matter? of course, there are issues. It is increasingly difficult to topple Europe’s top clubs. liverpool should certainly have too much for Monterrey, champions of the ConCACAF region, today.
Yet to hear veteran defender nicolas Sanchez speak before the game was to capture a flavour of what it means to those players who rarely receive exposure beyond their own country. Sanchez, an Argentine, has never been capped, but was voted player of the tournament in
the 2019 CONCACAF Champions League.
‘It is a really unique feeling,’ he said. ‘I never dreamt I would be playing in a competition like this, against a team like Liverpool, at the age of 33. This is a match of great distinction, a once- in- a- lifetime opportunity. We have the chance to make a great achievement.’
One senses that, at last, a Liverpool team feels the same way. As the competition’s importance increases, past players are beginning to realise what they missed — Jamie Carragher describes losing in 2005 as one of the biggest regrets of his career — and Klopp rightly regards flying 3,000 miles to be a waste of time, unless his team are prepared to give their all. His problem, voiced consistently, is more with the timing.
‘If you asked me if there should be a Club World Cup in the middle of our season, I would say no,’ Klopp insisted. ‘We are here so, for us, it is the most important competition in the world. But can it be bigger? I don’t know. FIFA plans a team World Cup in the summer, but that is the same summer when the African competition is playing and others as well.
‘It is nice we come closer, but organisers have to get around the table and talk, because otherwise FIFA say we’ll have a tournament, and UEFA say so will we, and then South America too. And they all think their tournament is the most important. So it’s not so easy. In the summer, yes, it is nice. But you cannot then have all the other tournaments. They won’t like this but it is my opinion — and I think all day about football.’
And more deeply than FIFA and the confederations, by the sounds of it. At the moment the expanded 2021 Club World Cup is slated for June 17 to July 4. The 2021 Africa Cup of Nations is scheduled for June 11 to July 9; CONCACAF’s Gold Cup from July 2 to July 25; and UEFA intend playing the final of their Nations League in June, too, dates to be confirmed.
So Klopp is right. Conversation is needed. Yet that does not make the Club World Cup an irrelevance, or even the poor relation. As Liverpool trained last night, Marco van Basten posted an Instagram photograph of his AC Milan team, world champions in 1989.
‘Thirty years ago today...’ read the proud caption. Obviously nobody told him he could have been playing a League Cup quarter-final at Villa Park instead.