Last Saturday, FIFA released the schedule of all matches in the group stage of the Club World Cup, a tournament that will take place between June 15 and July 13, 2025, in the United States. The draw had been held two days earlier in Miami.
Portuguese clubs SL Benfica and FC Porto will participate in the tournament.
This competition, which usually took place in the winter and involved the champions of the six confederations, was completely remodeled by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and will have 32 clubs in the 2025 edition.
That was a very controversial decision because the competition takes place during what is usually the players’ vacation period. Because of that, in recent months several renowned stars – including Rodri, Manchester City’s Spanish midfielder who won the Ballon d’Or award awarded to the best player in the world – have been publicly expressing their great displeasure with the increase in the number of games, as medical authorities have determined that the increased density of the competitive calendar, combined with the passive recovery from fatigue, has potentiated a growing wave of knee ligament tears in soccer players.
Rodri suffered a muscle tear on Sept. 22 against Arsenal and will not play again this season.
Henrique Jones, an orthopedist specializing in sports medicine and doctor of the Portuguese national team for many years, has also launched the alert.
“In recent years, the increase in this type of injury has almost quadrupled,” Jones noted. “There is no doubt that we have already begun to see complaints from athletes and clubs, as the overload of competitions is directly linked to this cataclysm of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries.”
“The medical community dealing with sports traumatology is super worried,” he added. “In addition to the competitive load, which is alarming, the problem is the shorter time that athletes have to recover and do prevention exercises. Because of this reduction, the knee is not as prepared as it should be to prevent this and other types of injuries.”
Florentino Pérez, president of UEFA champion Real Madrid, has also gone public to express his disagreement with the extended competitive calendar of the clubs.
“The calendar is linked to an alarming increase in injuries,” he said. “UEFA and FIFA added 14 matches of their own, the equivalent of two and a half months of competition. In total, we had 14 matches and 22 injuries. We have already had nine cruciate ligament injuries.”
The club’s extended injury list includes Dani Carvajal, Militão, Alaba, Tchouaméni, Vázquez and Vinicius Junior.
“The lack of rest affects the players’ careers,” Pérez said. FIFA has created a Club World Cup that deprives players of their usual rest. UEFA staged 488 official matches 10 years ago and now it has gone to 769, just to make more money.”
Interestingly, the search for the 2024 Club World Cup champion is still ongoing.
In its current format, the competition had seven teams representing the six FIFA confederations, who played seven games in the span of 11 days to determine the champion. But since the format for 2025 has been profoundly changed, with the expansion to 32 teams, the 2024 edition was also changed. As a result, the competition began in September, in a game in which Al Ain from the United Arab Emirates thrashed Auckland City from New Zealand, 6-2.
But in the next game, on Oct. 29, Al Ain was eliminated by Al-Ahly of Egypt, after losing 3-0.
This past Wednesday, led by Portuguese coach Artur Jorge, Botafogo, who last week were crowned champions of Brazil, just a couple of days after winning the Copa Libertadores, was upset by Mexican side Pachuca, by a 3-0 score.
On Sunday, Pachuca and Al-Ahly will square off to decide who gets to face European champion Real Madrid in the final to be played on Dec. 18 at Estádio Lusail, in Doha, Qatar.
Infantino has always turned a deaf ear to complaints from players, managers and club officials so during last Thursday’s draw the FIFA president said that everything FIFA does “has to be global.”
“(FIFA) has to involve the globe,” he said. “(FIFA) has to give opportunities and chances to [everyone] all over the world, and the (FIFA) Club World Cup is doing exactly that.”
For him, this tournament is a dream come true for many players.
“Any club from anywhere in the world can dream [about] playing in the FIFA Club World Cup,” he said. “And any player from anywhere in the world can dream [about] playing for one of these clubs because these are the best clubs in the world.”
“The 32 best teams of the world – 12 European, six South American, four from the other continents, one from Oceania, [two] from North America – will play to determine, for the first time in history which will be, really, the best club in the world,” he added. “You cannot be the best if you don’t play against clubs from everywhere – the best clubs from everywhere.”
Obviously, many of these teams are not among the top 32 in the world. They received access to the competition simply because the six confederations had to be represented.
Even in Major League Soccer (MLS), there is controversy because this year’s champion, the LA Galaxy, were excluded and in their place Infantino chose Inter Miami, who merely won the Supporters’ Shield, a trophy that rewards the team with the most points during the regular season. But for FIFA it is far more important to have Lionel Messi, for commercial reasons, than the champion of the League
Dale Johnson, ESPN FC General Editor, noted that “this is controversial because Inter Miami are not MLS champions. They won the Supporters’ Shield, handed to the team with the best regular-season record, and broke the MLS record for most points (74) in a single season in the process… Inter Miami failed to make it past the first round, as they were knocked out by Atlanta United. So Inter Miami and Messi will be at the Club World Cup. Not only that, it seems highly likely he’ll play in the first-ever match against Al Ahly at Miami’s home on June 14. Maybe he’ll get to take the kickoff too?”
FC Porto was placed in Group A, along with Palmeiras (Brazil), Inter Miami (MLS) and Al Ahly (Egypt), while Benfica went to Group C, with Bayern Munich (Germany), Boca Juniors (Argentina) and Auckland City (New Zealand).
Here is the draw for the Dragons:
The Reds play on the following days:
If they manage to get out of the group stage, as the top two teams in each group advance to the round of 16, the Portuguese teams already known who they will likely face. FC Porto’s Group A will cross paths with B, that includes PSG, Atlético Madrid and Botafogo; Benfica’s Group C will cross with D and could face Chelsea or Flamengo.
The round of 16 matches possibly involving Benfica and Futebol Clube do Porto will take place on June 28 or 29.
On Saturday, June 28, if Futebol Clube do Porto wins the group, they will face the runner-up from Group B, at Lincoln Financial Field, in Philadelphia. And if Benfica finishes first in Group C, they will square off against the runner-up in Group D, at Bank of America Stadium, in Charlotte.
If they finish in second place, both will play the following day. Futebol Clube do Porto will play against the winner of group B, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in Atlanta, and Benfica against the winner of Group D, at Hard Rock Stadium, in Miami.
“We are very proud to be part of this history,” said Benfica’s President Rui Costa. “We caught Boca Juniors, one of the most historic teams in the world. We have a lot of tradition of Argentinian players in Portugal. We have an interesting and beautiful connection here.”
“It’s a difficult group, a very difficult group, but I believe that for all of us, for the 32 teams, the most important thing at the moment is to be able to be part of this history of the first Club World Cup,” added Costa.
FC Porto President André Villas-Boas was also pleased with the opponents that landed in his group and revealed an interesting episode involving Palmeiras.
“I watched the draw with great emotion, with pleasure,” he said. “A curious story too… Palmeiras turned out to be one of the first clubs to start an exchange of pennants with FC Porto, already during the month of August, without knowing the result of the draw. They made a point of sending us a commemorative shirt of the Club World Cup without even knowing that we could play against each other.”
“Interesting also is the presence of a Portuguese coach [Abel Ferreira], who if he remains in charge will bring more Portuguese pride to the game,” he added. “Al Ahly, the Egyptian teams are always complicated, intense and always with a dedication and intensity in the game that is difficult to control. And then Inter Miami, with all their stars and everything that it means at the moment, to have an American team surrounded with all its stars like Messi and all the others.”
After the event, FIFA announced that it had reached a $1 billion broadcast deal with sports streaming service DAZN, which means that all 63 matches will be available for free as FIFA wants to reach five billion people and Infantino boasted that four million people will visit the U.S. to watch the tournament.
FIFA still has not announced how much each club will get from participating in the tournament, but it appears that the amount is far shorter of the initial projection of 50 million euros per club.
Villas-Boas confessed that he had expected a higher monetary fee, although this is something that is still being discussed.
“The ECA [European Club Association] continues to communicate with FIFA to try for a better distribution of prize money,” he said. “It is estimated to between 16 and 20 M€ per participant and then add-ons related to performance. Well below the initial expectations, but always important for FC Porto because of missing the Champions League this year… But I also tell you from the heart, we are very happy to be in this competition and very proud. We have won the Intercontinental twice and we want to be in this competition and honor those accomplishments.”
