Palmeiras will meet this Saturday (5th) the opponent they will face in the Club World Cup semifinals, on Tuesday (8th). And the favorite to get in the way of the alviverde team is the Mexican Monterrey, the biggest rival of the compatriot Tigres, precisely responsible for eliminating the alviverde team in the last edition of the tournament.
Back in the competition after taking third place in 2019, Monterrey will fight with Egypt’s Al Ahly for survival in the competition. The match is scheduled for 1:30 pm (Brasília time), with broadcast by Band.
Established as a club-company, the Mexican team led by Javier Aguirre has as its main goal to advance, for the first time, to the decision – in its fifth participation, it has two third places as its best results (2012 and 2019). For this, the club has spared no financial efforts in recent years, especially with the contribution made by its biggest investor, FEMSA.
The fifth largest company in terms of revenue in Mexico, in addition to being a shareholder in the Heineken brewery and the largest Coca-Cola distributor on the planet, the multinational helped Monterrey to invest 76.4 million euros (R$ 455.2 million) in reinforcements for the squad in the last four years, according to the website Transfermarkt.
Names such as Argentine midfielder Maximiliano Meza and Dutch striker Vincent Janssen helped the team win the Concacaf Champions League twice (2019 and 2021), in addition to the 2019 Mexican Championship and the 2020 Mexico Cup.
The squad that has athletes from six different nationalities had nine players called up for the last FIFA date, five of them Mexicans (César Montes, Héctor Moreno, Gallardo, Luis Romo and Funes Mori), two Argentines (Andrada and Meza), one Chilean ( Sebastián Vegas) and a Costa Rican (Campbell).
The calls for commitments for the World Cup Qualifiers slightly hampered Monterrey’s preparation for the World Cup, since only on the eve of the duel against the Egyptians did the coaching staff start working with the full squad.
At this point, however, Ah Ahly is in a much more complicated situation. The team arrived in the Emirates with eight absences, all playing in the African Cup of Nations. Only two of them will arrive in the country in time to duel with the Mexicans: winger Ali Maâloul, who was with the Tunisian team, which was eliminated in the quarterfinals, and forward Aliou Dieng, from Mali, also out of contention.
The other athletes are from the Egypt national team, which on Thursday (3) passed through Cameroon and advanced to the final of the competition, which will be held on Sunday (6), against Senegal. Therefore, the six players are already certain absences for Al Ahly.
In its seventh participation in the Club World Cup, the Cairo city team also dreams of reaching the final for the first time and has two third places as its best results, obtained in 2006 and 2020. In the 2020 edition, held in 2021 by because of the pandemic, beat Palmeiras on penalties in the dispute for third place.
Source: Folha
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