Supposedly there is a new type of World Cup and it’s coming to the US.
FIFA has decided to expand the Club World Cup (which I never knew was a thing) from 7 teams to 32 and just revealed that the first ever installation of the new tournament will be hosted by the United States.
As opposed to the World Cup where teams are made up by player nationality, the Club World Cup takes the best soccer clubs in the entire world and pits them against one another to determine the best soccer team in the world. While this has been going on since 2000, the tournament elected 2025 as the first year they will allow 32 teams to compete, essentially making the tournament over 4x larger.
Games for the tournament will take place all throughout the United States and give Americans the opportunity to watch world-class soccer from the biggest and best teams overseas. The tournament will take place between June and July of 2025, lasting approximately three weeks.
In order to qualify for the tournament, a club must win a continental tournament (excluding Australia and Antarctica) between the years 2021-2024. Teams that have already qualified include Champions League winners Real Madrid, Manchester City, and Chelsea, as well as many other continental champs such as the Seattle Sounders, Palmeiras, Flamengo, Monterrey, Leon, Al-Ahly, Wydad Casablanca, Urawa Red Diamonds, and Al Hilal.
Though there is not an official format for the tournament quite yet, there is speculation that FIFA will organize the teams into eight groups of four. The contest will begin with group play so that each team gets to play at least three games with each group winner moving on to the quarterfinals. Counting a presumed third-place game, the tournament would be made up of 56 total matches.
Hosting the 2025 Club World Cup means there is a ton of soccer coming to the US. Aside from this tournament, the US is also set to host the Copa América tournament in 2024 and the actual World Cup in 2026. That is three straight years of soccer in the United States.
Whether you are a soccer fan or not (I’m clearly not hence my referral to it as soccer), this is exciting news for the US. All of the best talent in the world is coming to showcase their skills in one of the most epic tournaments ever created. We will get to see the MLS Champion Seattle Sounders get absolutely destroyed and all of the foreign teams confused by belligerent American fans.
If you don’t give a shit about soccer and think this is stupid, look at this way: we just got 56 more excuses to drink in the middle of the day. Now, that’s something to celebrate.
