The 2021 edition of the Club World Cup will start this Thursday (3), which was postponed to 2022 due to complications in the football calendar during the Covid-19 pandemic. Seven teams fight to win for the first time the competition in its current form, organized by FIFA and with participants from all continents.
Initially scheduled for Japan, the tournament will be held in the United Arab Emirates, which presented itself as an alternative when those who would be the hosts withdrew from hosting the matches due to the worsening of the coronavirus crisis. Brazil also launched its candidacy, without success.
The change gave Al Jazeera the possibility of entering the dispute as the host country’s representative. Champion of the Emirates, the team will make its debut at 1:30 pm (Brasília time), with transmission from Bandsports and the Band website, against another team that would not be in the championship under normal conditions, Pirae.
The club from Tahiti, in French Polynesia, was invited by FIFA to fill the vacancy that would be the New Zealander Auckland City. For the second year in a row, Auckland had to give up the World Cup also for reasons related to Covid-19, with restrictions on the movement of people imposed by the government of their country.
The process of defining the Oceania representative was the most complicated, as the continent has not had a champion since 2019. The OFC Champions League (the Oceania confederation) was interrupted in 2020, because of the pandemic. Auckland City, which had the best campaign, was chosen to play in the World Cup, but had to withdraw shortly before leaving for Qatar.
The continental competition, which did not end in 2020, nor did it start in 2021. The New Zealand team, then, was again nominated to play in the FIFA tournament and again aborted the plan to play it. The solution found was the definition of Pirae, which has never won the Oceania title and is basically made up of amateurs.
Whoever survives the confrontation between Pirae and Al Jazira will then face Al Hilal, from Saudi Arabia, champion of Asia. It will be from this subsequent duel that the opponent of Chelsea, from England, will come out, who won the 2020/21 Champions League and, as usually happens with the European in the competition, carries favoritism.
The representative of the old continent has won all the editions of the World Cup held since 2013. It happens that Chelsea was precisely the last winner of the Champions League to fail, losing to Corinthians, 1-0, in Japan, in 2012. The London team now seeks his first FIFA trophy, although he makes it clear that this is not a priority.
“That’s 0% in my head,” coach Thomas Tuchel said at the end of last year, indicating that the Premier League and the Champions League itself caused him greater concern. Later, he went on to say that the contest “is very exciting”, while admitting: “It’s a competition that doesn’t seem to have much importance in Europe”.
The players of Palmeiras, South American champion for the second year in a row, shrug off the German coach’s statements and work for what is their great objective. Like Chelsea, the Brazilian team starts the dispute in the semifinals and carries favoritism in an attempt to reach the decision.
The alviverde debut will take place next Tuesday (8), in Abu Dhabi, the city that will host all the matches of the tournament. The Portuguese Abel Ferreira’s men will be waiting for the winner of the duel between the Mexican Monterrey, who took the title in Central and North America, and the Egyptian Al Ahly, who took the best in Africa.
There must be important absences in the African team, which defeated Palmeiras in the fight for third place in the 2020 edition. FIFA has superimposed the Club World Cup and the African Cup of Nations on the calendar. Egypt, which has six Al Ahly players, is involved in the continental competition of national teams and will play in the semi-final this Thursday, against Cameroon.
It is one of the reasons why bookmakers give Monterrey an advantage in Saturday’s match (5). If this favoritism is confirmed, Palmeiras will have a Mexican ahead again, a year after being eliminated by Tigres. The semifinal survivor will make the big decision on the 12th.
Source: Folha
I have worked in the news industry for over 10 years. I have a vast amount of experience in covering health news. I am also an author at News Bulletin 247. I am highly experienced and knowledgeable in this field. I am a hard worker and always deliver quality work. I am a reliable source of information and always provide accurate information.
