The Club World Cup Is Fine… (It’s The Euro Snobs Who Are The Problem)

#brasilianfury #fifaclubworldcup #cwc #messi

Today, we’re talking about the FIFA Club World Cup from the perspective of someone whose team is playing in it, who is excited for the concept of it even with its faulty management and about how I think that some of the critiques thrown around by various outlets and folks regarding the competition are being done in bad faith.

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◘ “Pro Dia Nascer Feliz” by Barão Vermelho

The FIFA Club World Cup is almost upon us. Thirty-two teams from across the globe, 
eight groups of four and a month-long competition with the winner getting the 
bragging rights to be considered the best club in the entirety of world 
football for the next four years. On paper, it sounds like a fun concept. 
But when you consider that FIFA – the most corrupt foundation in all of sports – are 
the ones running the competition and that they chose to inaugurate this new version of it 
in a country ruled by Orange Julius Caesar, it does not inspire a lot of hope for its success. But the way you hear all of these football 
“influencers” in the English-speaking echosphere talking about this competition, it’s as if Gianni 
Infantino walked up to the essence and purity of the sport of football and shot it in cold blood 
in front of all of us for a billion dollar payday. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the thought 
has crossed his mind if it meant FIFA having an extra zero added on their bank account 
but my point is that for all of the proper critiques that a competition ran by that 
organization deserves and that should be talked about…there’s also a lot of weird 
projecting being done by this “community” as well because their reaction to anything 
outside of European football trying to take center stage is like that of a Victorian 
era child after eating a Sour Patch Kid. So today, let’s talk about the FIFA 
Club World Cup from the perspective of someone whose team is playing in it, who 
is excited for the concept of it even with its faulty management and about how I think 
that some of the critiques thrown around by various outlets and folks regarding the 
competition are being done in bad faith. [INTRO] First and foremost, this whole concept of 
the Club World Cup is not new. In fact, it has already been happening under 
this specific name since 2000, when FIFA launched the format to piggyback off 
the success they’ve had with the Intercontinental Cup – which was a one-off game between the 
Copa Libertadores winner in South America and the UEFA European Cup winner that began 
in 1960 and ran all the way through 2004. The framework and competition rules of it 
have varied since its inception in 2000 where Brazil hosted the first edition 
and the bane of my f***ing existence in Sport Club Corinthians Paulista won the 
whole thing on penalties against Rio de Janeiro side Vasco da Gama. After a bit 
of a logistics mess that is completely on brand for a FIFA that was run by Sepp 
Blatter, the competition’s 2001 edition was cancelled and it remained dormant until 
2005. By then, they had finally figured out a new format where the continental champions 
of all six continents would come together in a knockout style tournament over the course of 
a week and determine the Club World Cup winner. The format of the Club World Cup was expanded 
to seven teams in 2007 – the host nation being able to choose the best team from their 
domestic league to represent them as the seventh team – and that format of the competition 
trucked along until 2023 in order to make room for the souped up version that we’re about 
to see being hosted by the United States. Now, how do I know all of this? Well, besides 
the fact that searching for stuff on the internet is an easy thing to do and you don’t need a 
goddamn robot like half of Football Twitter to explain it to you like you’re five, I am a 
Palmeiras fan. We won the Copa Libertadores in 2021 and with that, ended up earning one 
of those CONMEBOL spots and as a fanbase, we have been salivating at the chance to 
play in this new format of the competition. Primarily, because we suffer 
from having to hear just about every other club’s fanbases scream 
that “PALMEIRAS NUM TEM MUNDIAL”… [Stephen A. Smith: “I MEAN, THIS IS 
JU- LOOK MAN, I MEAN, ARGHHHH!!!!”] [Stephen A. Smith: “I AM *SUFFERING!*”] …while cackling about their club’s one to 
three Intercontinental or Club World Cup wins that happened 20 to 30 years ago while 
my club’s been winning multiple titles on a domestic and continental level in 
the past five years. But I digress… The “super mundial,” as we’re calling it in 
Brazil, definitely has a crazier format than the previous iterations of the competition. You’ve 
got all six continents involved in some manner, you’re guaranteed some pretty niche clashes 
that you wouldn’t witness in the world of football otherwise and I think for anyone that 
actually likes the sport – instead of just liking individual players or a big team in Europe that 
came in 2nd place for umpteenth time – there is an appeal to see how the best teams in certain 
areas would fare against European giants or to measure if there’s a massive gap between 
African or Asian football against North and South American representatives…things of 
that nature. After all, styles make fights. But before I get accused of being Gianni 
Infantino’s greatest PR soldier – God knows he needs them to sell tickets in this 
edition of the tournament – I do want to emphasize that this new format of the 
Club World Cup comes with its fair share of oddities and some pretty massive 
fumbles during its preparation stages. When you’re still limiting the continent of 
Oceania to one club only along with ranking coefficients over four-year cycles lead to teams 
who aren’t even in continental competitions this year being able to get in on the action (Boca 
Juniors meme here)? You have some issues…and that’s before I even get into the fact that Inter 
Miami got awarded the “host” spot for winning the MLS’ Supporters Shield aka the regular season 
league over Columbus Crew or the LA Galaxy, who actually won the MLS Cup after going through their 
whole knockouts system over the past two years. If anything, we learned that having a play-in game 
in the manner that LAFC and Club América had to go through would have been the best solution for 
this whole “host country club” situation…and even that game only happened because FIFA botched 
their whole rulebook for this tournament when it came to multi-club ownership situation with 
Club León and Pachuca – which eventually got León booted out of the competition in the 
first place, facilitating this play-in game. Yes, believe it or not, you can 
be excited about the concept of a club football tournament where multiple 
interesting matches are set to happen while also criticizing the body organizing the 
tournament for being greedy scumbags who’ll just do whatever the f**k they want if it 
means gaining more influence and fortune. These things are not mutually exclusive, contrary 
to whatever your favorite monotone footballing YouTuber who roots for a team from bumf**k 
nowhere, Yorkshire might try to tell you. OK, look…I know that sounded unnecessarily harsh 
but it does lead me to my next point. Because over the past months since the Club World Cup’s 
format got announced, the draws for the group stage and everything in between…one particular 
group has been very, very vocal about it all: Europeans. ENGLISH-speaking Europeans, to be precise. [“Boy, if you don’t get the f**k out my face…”] There’s been a lot of talk in recent months 
from many areas regarding this competition by prolific voices within regular media, 
social media and in this outlet known as YouTube. This is what made me want to make this 
video in the first place, because English is widely considered a lingua franca in the 
world of football – especially in Europe. Which means that as someone who is fluent in 
English as a second language, I’ve unfortunately been subject to incredibly nonsensical 
takes left and right about the tournament. So rather than pulling a Dagnal Diagonal 
on you and flooding the next 30 seconds of your video with various tweets 
from every degenerate on Football Twitter and showing you the horrors 
of the “For You” page…we’re just gonna classify all of these “critiques” 
into a few different categories: 1) The “We Don’t Care” Brigade [“WHO’S WE?!?!?!” meme] Ah yes, the primary European-pilled go to 
excuse that reeks of a superiority complex that none of you have actually earned and 
yet, these people feel the compelling need to tell you about how much they don’t 
care about the competition because of a laundry list of reasons that go from their 
favorite club not being good enough to qualify for it to how it’s not prestigious enough 
because it isn’t the UEFA Champions League. Congratulations, now please remember that the 
only reason your leagues and your continental cup competitions are even at the level of 
prestige that they are now…is because of egregious amounts of money that you all pay to 
grab the best foreign talents from outside of your continent and integrate them into your 
leagues and cups. Because let’s be real, if your leagues were restricted to having 
to field players from your own countries… [“We used an advanced regression model 
to find that you’re either totally, entirely or marginally f***ed.”] Now, I’d happily open the floor to discuss how 
nonsensical the rankings system for selection non-continental cup winning teams to partake in 
the competition are and point out things like how Austrian energy drink merchants RB Salsburg are 
the equivalent of the “polar bear in Arlington, Texas” meme but…I know you all don’t care, 
so we’re gonna move on to the next category! 2) The “It’s Too Many Matches” Pearl Clutchers Alright, this one? It’s an important point because 
believe it or not, there are actual and valuable arguments to make about this point when it comes 
to the sport with the increase in matches over the past 20 to 30 years with the additions of 
various competitions on a local, continental and worldwide scale. In fact, FIFPRO did a whole 
workload report calling for necessary safeguards on excessive workload for players throughout 
the course of a footballing calendar year. Of course, this is also an organization that 
only has 66 countries on board and they also happily entered a “historic partnership” with 
UEFA after the latter expanded their Champions League format from 32 teams to 36, changed the 
whole format to add two extra league phase games and then added an extra round of matches 
for teams placing 9th through 24th place. Additionally, let’s not forget the fact that South 
American and Asian teams are actually having to stop their league play schedules to compete in 
this tournament and adding another 3 to possibly 7 extra matches on top of a 60-70+ match schedule 
or how teams like Mamelodi Sundowns, Wydad AC, Al Ain and Al Ahly also just wrapped up their 
45-50+ game seasons not too long ago and are also having to fly out of their respective 
homes to participate in this tournament too. See…footballers playing too many games and it 
having a toll on their bodies that can lead to injuries and a decrease in the quality of the 
game is a concern that should and needs to be addressed. But when it’s also an argument 
being made by the whiniest babies in the room who are upset that they can’t farm Asian 
or North American markets for more money with asinine preseason tours immediately after 
their European seasons are over or as their actual preseasons before their leagues start, 
I tend to lose most of my semblance of empathy. Look, if the players want to go on strike 
because they feel the match load is too much of a burden on their bodies, I’m not 
stopping them – good on them for standing up for themselves if they ever do, because 
lord knows these clubs and institutions are not going to do it. But the fact that this 
whole point is used by people as an attempted “gotcha” at a new tournament being launched 
– even if it is by, and I must emphasize, f***ing FIFA – rather than out of football fans 
feeling any semblance of pity for players’ and the overload of matches played each year…even you 
have to agree this is kind of f***ed up, right?! 3) The “It’s a Cash Grab by FIFA 
and The Prize Money is The Only Reason Anyone is Even Participating 
In It, Dummy (YEAH!)” Know-It-Alls Huh, somebody actually nailed at least half of 
the assignment. 5/10…but I do have some notes. First, you mean to tell me the Club World 
Cup – organized by FIFA, the epitome of pure sporting integrity – is motivated by 
money? I, for one, am shocked. What’s next, you’re gonna tell me water is wet? Or that 
those shiny new sponsorship deals for it from the PIF in Saudi Arabia didn’t just 
magically appear out of love for the game? [“If I wanted a joke, I’d follow you into 
the john and watch you take a leak.”] Second, these European snobs pretended to have 
this same exact problem with the new format of the UEFA Champions League for months leading 
up to the competition and now that it’s been played for a whole year, I can’t help but hear 
most of you clapping it up for all the extra games and the entertainment you got out of them. 
Funny how “football is being ruined!” turns into “what a brilliant knockout stage!” after a few 
thrillers under the lights. But no, you’re totally different when it comes to the Club World Cup — 
it’s *all* about your values this time, right?! Anyway, moral high ground and pearl-clutching 
aside, here’s the facts. Many clubs are hellbent on not only participating in this 
tournament but on winning the whole damn lot. We’ve got the likes of Real Madrid out here 
promising to give each player a bonus of €1 Million for winning the Club World Cup after 
the massive failure of a season that they had in 2024-25. Every single South American club is 
hellbent on trying to take some European skulls back home and to call themselves the biggest 
of world champions by aiming for this trophy. You have players like goalkeeper Khalid Eisa 
for Al Ain stating how “these will be some of the most beautiful matches of a lifetime, 
ones I’ll remember for decades…” In Saitama, thousands of fans unfurled a huge flag saying 
“Grab the World Cup” ahead of Urawa Red Diamonds’ last domestic game against FC Tokyo 
before heading to the U.S. for the tournament. You can go through every single team that is 
in this Club World Cup and you’re going to find a story about how much a competition like 
this one means to them and their fans – along with also realizing how archaic the MLS is 
as an institution for screwing the Seattle Sounders and LAFC out of their rightful prize 
pool for participating in this tournament. Surely, to any of my European contemporaries 
who have somehow managed to stick it out through all of this, you can understand the 
concept of a tournament where opportunities are given for teams around the world 
who do meet the criteria to shine, to give their fans memorable 
moments that they will never forget. After all, isn’t this what sports are all about? Those once in a lifetime memories and 
the possibilities that come with it? At the end of the day, the 
FIFA Club World Cup is fine. It’s not perfect. It’ll likely never be perfect. 
After all, it’s run by FIFA. In some way, shape or form, they’ll find ways to make 
the qualifications in future renditions of this just as convoluted as this first 
go-around and I don’t even want to imagine the logistic nightmare that an edition 
where multiple teams from City Group and Red Bull manage to qualify for will lead in 
terms of those clubs being allowed to stay while another Liga MX club probably gets 
booted because of multi club ownership. But at this instant, it is the closest 
competition that we will get that might just answer the question as to who the best 
football club in the entire world is…no matter how many footballing snobs out there may try 
to tell us otherwise. And most importantly, it’ll be a competition where I don’t have 
to put up with Jamie Carragher’s dogshit analysis on the sport during halftime and 
the aftermath of each of the games I watch! Well, that does it for me. If this video 
was something you enjoyed watching or if you just liked me yapping in general…go 
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how you still don’t care or some asinine nonsense like that…please go find better ways 
to disappoint the father figures in your life.