Yahoo Sports To win Club World Cup, Man City must beat a line-up more suited to Soccer Aid
The first Club World Cup final in Manchester City’s history, as Pep Guardiola is fond of pointing out, and awaiting them on Friday is an unlikely opponent for the title of world champion: a Fluminense side from Brazil featuring seven veterans of the game.
The South American champions won their semi-final in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday with an XI that featured two players in their forties and a further five in their thirties. The great Marcelo, at the age of 35, a five-times Champions League-winning Real Madrid left-back, is back at the club he first played for as a teenager and is by no means the oldest.
Felipe Melo, once of Juventus and Inter Milan is 40. Fluminense goalkeeper Fabio is 43 – he made his professional debut in 1997. The team that beat the African champions Al Ahly also featured right-back Samuel Xavier (33); attackers Ganso and Keno (both 34) and the Argentine Germán Cano (35).
The Fluminense manager Fernando Diniz is now also the interim Brazil coach, and his style of play has drawn comparison with Guardiola’s possession-based approach. But in a nation which is among the greatest producers of young talent – and Fluminense have some youngsters too – Diniz has a strong faith in experience. He also tried to persuade Thiago Silva, another graduate of Fluminense’s famous Xerem academy in Rio de Janeiro to return. The Chelsea centre-back is 39-years-old.
Fluminense finished seventh in the Brasileiro Serie A this month and can look more like a Soccer Aid line-up than a team ready to take on the might of Guardiola’s European champions. But there is another crucial element to this: Fifa needs Fluminense to make the final against City on Saudi’s Red Sea coast a proper contest, for the reputation of the Club World Cup.
At a Fifa Council meeting on Sunday, the governing body ratified the plans for its much extended, lucrative new 32-team Club World Cup format, beginning in 2025. That will have 12 European teams competing and the concern is they will dominate the knockout stage of the competition, which will be held every four years, starting in the United States. In short it could become a repeat of Uefa’s Champions League, staged in the summer when players need to rest, and with little sporting merit.
City’s 3-0 semi-final victory over Asian champions Urawa Red Diamonds was one-sided. Urawa have not been Japanese champions since 2006 and managed just a single attempt on goal. Fluminense, who Diniz has drilled into a passing team that is open, now have to decide whether they will follow that belief into a final against the most formidable side in world football.
As for narrowing the gap in quality between club sides in Europe and the rest of the world – that is one issue that a bigger Club World Cup will do more to emphasise than fix. It may benefit Fifa’s finances but it will also demonstrate that European sides are superior by virtue of the wealth advantage that domestic and Uefa broadcast contracts have bestowed upon them. Only three of the last 18 Club World Cups have been won by South Americans – Brazilians each time - and the rest have been European sides.
Fluminense have some promising young talent, including Andre, the 22-year-old midfielder of interest to Liverpool and the young Brazilians Matheus Martinelli (22) and John Kennedy (21). Diniz is himself an undoubted star. He is regarded as the current leading Brazilian coach and holding the fort with the embattled national team until Carlo Ancelotti arrives in the summer.
“The experience of players like Marcelo makes a big difference,” Diniz said after the semi-final win. His famous full-back won the penalty that changed the game with a nutmeg and a dart inside that was redolent of his peak years. “He has played in so many big games,” Diniz said, “and he is able to adapt to the conditions and the opponent.”
That Fluminense have got so far is remarkable. Diniz, 49, has had 17 jobs in 14 years as a manager. His 18th is taking charge of Brazil. A former midfielder whose playing career was spent in Brazil, he has told the big names coming back to the club that they will have to learn a new approach and all have bought in. The Copa Libertadores victory was the first in Fluminense history.
Fluminense have reached a Club World Cup final on an annual revenue of the equivalent of £60 million, around 10 per cent of City’s turnover. The club is run by the sports lawyer Mario Bittencourt, who was re-elected president this year, and had come to prominence acting in corruption scandals in Brazilian football.
Their Rio rivals Flamengo have greater wealth, and in the litigious world of Brazilian football, the perception among Fluminense fans is that their neighbours also have much more influence. Fluminense was founded in 1902, by an Englishman, Oscar Cox, and in 1952 won a precursor of the Club World Cup, the Copa Rio. Fluminense have lobbied Fifa to recognise that tournament, which the governing body at the time helped to organise, and featured European sides including Rapid Vienna and Sporting Lisbon, as a bona fide major honour.
For all the aging legs in the current team, the Xerem academy has produced some fine young talent – the problem is that they do not stay for long. As well as Marcelo and Thiago Silva, Joao Pedro of Brighton started at the club and Richarlison played some formative years there as a young professional.
Fluminense’s leading goalscorer Cano, a physical No 10, has never been capped by Argentina but has 40 goals in 2023. That places him fourth globally behind Harry Kane, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Erling Haaland. How Fluminense approach the game will be intriguing. They are accustomed to attacking. Given City’s appetite for possession, it could be a draining night in the Jeddah heat.
