The United Arab Emirates will be hosting the annual Club World Cup tournament between February 3rd and 12th with seven teams from across the world representing the six different FIFA confederations as well as the host nation.
This will actually be the 2021 event and the 18th edition overall as it was postponed from last year due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Between 1960 and 2004 the predecessor of the tournament was known as the Intercontinental Cup.
Bayern Munich won last season’s cup but didn’t qualify for the tournament this time around as the German Bundesliga giants were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League. The teams that did qualify for this tournament are Palmeiras of Brazil, Chelsea of England, Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia, Mexican club Monterrey, Al Ahly of Egypt, AS Pirae of Tahiti and Al Jazira of the United Arab Emirates.
Palmeiras qualified as the CONMEBOL representative by winning the 2021 Copa Libertadores while Chelsea is representing UEFA by capturing the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League. Al Hilal is the AFC representative after winning the 2021 AFC Champions League. Al Ahly is representing the CAF as reward for hoisting the 2020/21 CAF Champions League, Monterrey is the CONCACAF representative after winning the 2021 CONCACAF Champions League and AS Pirae was voted by the OFC federation as its representative. Also, Al Jazira is playing as the AFC host nation after winning the 2020/21 UAE Pro League. Auckland City of New Zealand was the original representative of the OFC but the club withdrew from the competition in and was replaced by AS Pirae.
All tournament games will be played in the city of Abu Dhabi at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium or the Nahyan Stadium. Each team must have a 23-man squad with three of the players being goaltenders and injury replacements are allowed 24 hours before a club’s first game.
The event is a little complicated as Al Jazira meets AS Pirae in the first match with the winner advancing to the second round to take on Al Hilal. The winner of that second-round match plays Chelsea in the third round (semi-finals). The other second-round contests sees Al Ahly facing Monterrey with the winners meeting Palmeiras in the second semi-final. The losers of the semi-finals play in the third-place game while the losers of the second-round contests square off in the fifth-place match. The FIFA Final will be held on Saturday, February 12th at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium.
Tie games are allowed until the tournament reaches the elimination stage when a 30-minute period of extra time will be used to decide a winner. If the match is still level after extra time it will then be decided by a penalty shoot-out. However, the third and fifth-place matches won’t have extra time as these games will go straight to a shoot-out if they finish level.
This will be the first appearance in the tournament for Al Pirae while it is the second for Chelsea, Al Jazira and Palmeiras. For Monterrey, it is their fifth tournament while it is the seventh for Al Ahly. None of the clubs have won the event in the past or made it as far as the final.
The most successful FIFA confederation at the tournament has been UEFA with 13 titles and 3 runners-up while there has been 4 winners from CONMEBOL with 9 runners-up. The AFC and CAF have each boasted a pair of runners-up while there has been 1 runner-up from CONCACAF.