By Gustavo Castilho
Six teams compete for the best team trophy in the world
Tomorrow the ball starts rolling at the Club World Cup in Qatar. The competition will follow the same format as the previous editions. The traditional tournament that brings together the continental champions will also serve as a test for the 2022 World Cup. The two stadiums to be used in this month’s competition will host the World Cup next year: Ahmed bin Ali and Education City. Both have the capacity to receive up to 40 thousand people. But because of the pandemic, there will only be up to 12 thousand spectators.
With six teams participating, since the representative of Oceania, Auckland City, gave up participating because of the existing rules in New Zealand for those returning from international travel, the dispute will have a simple format. As the tournament’s standard, the champions of America (Palmeiras) and Europe (Bayern Munich), have already started the campaign only in the semifinals. In the previous phase, Tigres (representative of Central and North America) and Ulsan (team from South Korea and Asian champion) on the one hand dispute who will face Palmeiras. On the other side, Al Ahly (from Egypt and African champion) and Al Duhail (from Qatar and last national champion, entered for being the country’s representative), duel to define Bayern’s opponent.
Apart from the Brazilians at Palmeiras, another four athletes born in the country compete in the Club World Cup. Luiz Junior (naturalized by Qatar) and Dudu (who, interestingly, still belongs to Palmeiras) defend Al Duhail; Douglas Costa wears Bayern Munich shirt 11 and defensive midfielder Rafael Carioca, plays for Tigres.Although the tournament is the biggest achievement at the international level, the award is modest. The champion takes home five million euros (about R $ 33 million). Just for comparison, the Copa Libertadores gave Palmeiras about R $ 82 million for the title.
Tomorrow, two games already define the confrontations of the semifinals. At 11am, Brasília time, Tigers (MEX) and Ulsan (COR) have their first match of the tournament. Mexicans count on the French scorer Gignac to stamp the classification. Later, at 2:30 pm, it will be the turn of Al Ahly (EGY) and Al Duhail (QAT). The team from Qatar, which has Dudu (ex-Palmeiras) as the main player of the team.
