By Gustavo Castilho
Never in the history of the tournament has a South American team ended in such a low position
The Club World Cup in Qatar will not miss Palmeiras. After failing to qualify for the final, the team was left to fight for third place in the tournament, facing Ah Ahly, from Egypt. After 0-0 in normal time, the match went to penalties and the Egyptian team won the match by 3-2. The defeat caused Palmeiras to finish the FIFA Club World Cup in fourth place. In addition to leaving the competition with no goals scored, the team also had another negative point. For the first time in the tournament’s history, a South American club did not finish the competition among the top three.
Abel Ferreira changed four players in relation to the game against Tigres-MEX, and had Mayke, Felipe Melo, Patrick de Paula and Willian as news. One of the ideas when making the exchanges was to leave the team with more breath, but that was not what happened. The team often scored from a distance, with only a few moments of pressure on the attacking field of the Egyptians. The result was yet another poor performance, in a game in which the Portuguese coach was slow to move. The first exchanges took place 35 minutes into the second half.
Al Ahly played practically at home, as the 12,000 or so fans at the stadium were Egyptians living in Qatar. Even though it is not a team of great quality and lacking in Kahraba and El Shahaat, vetoed by FIFA – after greeting Aboutrika in the stands and breaking the Covid-19 protocol – Al-Ahly showed great delivery, good collective game and created a great opportunity, defended by Weverton in the second half.
In the penalty shootout, goalkeeper Weverton even tried to catch two hits from the African team, but it was not enough, as Rony, Luiz Adriano and Felipe Melo lost. The midfielder was the last to hit and ended up having the shot saved by goalkeeper El Shenawy. Only Gustavo Scarpa and Gustavo Gómez converted the charges to Verdão.
The Egyptian team repeated the feat of 2006, when eliminated by Internacional, disputed the third place against América-MEX and won by 2 to 1. The victory was quite celebrated by the team. Thus, Al Ahly will return home with 2.5 million dollars, while Palmeiras pays two million dollars and returns to focus on the decision of the Copa do Brasil.
