Fifa Club World Cup: Chelsea set for competition that football doesn’t know what to do with
For Wednesday afternoon, when they take on Asian champions Al Hilal in the semi-finals, the Fifa Club World Cup will be the focus of Chelsea’s attention.
In a season in which the Blues could in theory still win five trophies, however, it is harder to say where the competition ranks among their priorities.
Such is the curious case of a competition that is styled as the pinnacle of the club game but, in reality, football cannot agree what to do with.
If Fifa president Gianni Infantino had his way, the Club World Cup would by now have been transformed into a month-long spectacle to match its international namesake.
Last summer was supposed to witness the first edition of the competition in a new format, expanded from seven to 24 teams and taking place not annually but every four years.
But the postponement of Euro 2020 and the Copa America to 2021 left no space in football’s calendar for the relaunched Club World Cup, and it was postponed indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the demise of the Super League project has only dented Fifa’s chances of getting sceptical European clubs to commit to the revamped concept.
So the Club World Cup remains in a sort of limbo, divorced from football’s traditional heartlands in venues such as Qatar and, this year, Abu Dhabi.
Its profile in the UK is not helped by the fact that Premier League clubs have tended not to value competitions like this one and the European Super Cup.
For English teams the Champions League is the pinnacle, while the Club World Cup, which only began this century, feels confected; a sort of deluxe Community Shield.
Perhaps it is no wonder, then, that Infantino and Fifa saw it as ripe for a rebrand.
Chelsea will nonetheless be expected to beat Al Hilal and advance to Saturday’s final, where they can make amends for defeat in 2012.
The Saudi side’s biggest name is coach Leonardo Jardim, who was flavour of the month not so long ago after leading Monaco to the French league title in 2017.
Their mostly homegrown squad is also peppered with a few alumni of European leagues, however, including Nigeria striker Odion Ighalo, once of Manchester United and Watford, Matheus Pereira, who lit up the Premier League with West Brom, and itinerant forwards Moussa Marega and Andre Carillo.
That attacking force was brought to bear on Al-Jazira, who they beat 6-1 in the previous round on Sunday, Ighalo scoring on his debut.
Jardim complained on Tuesday that his side would be disadvantaged by playing the extra game; the European and South American champions receive byes to the semi-finals.
Chelsea have their own issues, however, with manager Thomas Tuchel and first-choice goalkeeper Edouard Mendy absent from the party that flew out on Monday.
Tuchel stayed behind after testing positive for Covid, meaning his assistant Zsolt Low has been left to prepare the players – with input from the manager via video link.
Mendy, meanwhile, was part of the Senegal team that won the Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday and was due to join his club colleagues in the UAE on Tuesday or Wednesday.
A glance at previous winners shows why Chelsea are favourites: European teams have won all but one of the last 14 editions, the Blues’ defeat to Conrinthians in 2012 being the exception.
The outcome of the Club World Cup may err on the side of predictable, then. What the future holds for this unloved competition, however, remains anything but.