Lléo wrote:

On 05/07/2025 22:49, Lléo wrote:

With the quarterfinal round over today, here are the standings from
5th to 32nd position, ordered by round, points, goal difference,
most goals scored and yellow cards (this one used only to break a
tie for the 29th position).

Updating this post: since we won't have a third place playoff on this tournament, I'm adding here 3rd and 4th places based on the same
criteria as above, as well as some comments on Conmebol's performance
below the table.

3 Real Madrid 13
4 Fluminense 11 ---------------------------------------------------

 5 Borussia Dortmund     10
 6 Bayern Munchen         9
 7 Al-Hilal               8 (GD +2, GS-GC 8-6)
 8 Palmeiras              8 (GD +2, GS-GC 6-4) ---------------------------------------------------
 9 Manchester City        9
10 Benfica                7 (GD +4)
11 Flamengo               7 (GD +2)
12 Internazionale         7 (GD +1)
13 Juventus               6 (GD +4)
14 Botafogo               6 (GD 0)
15 Monterrey              5 (GD +3)
16 Inter Miami            5 (GD -3) ---------------------------------------------------
17 Atletico de Madrid     6
18 Mamelodi Sundowns      4 (GD 0, GS-GC 4-4)
19 River Plate            4 (GD 0, GS-GC 3-3)
20 RB Salzburg            4 (GD -2)
21 Espérance              3 (GD -4)
22 Al Ain                 3 (GD -10)
23 Porto                  2 (GD -1, GS-GC 5-6)
24 Boca Juniors           2 (GD -1, GS-GC 4-5)
25 Al Ahly                2 (GD -2)
26 Los Angeles FC         1 (GD -3)
27 Auckland City          1 (GD -16)
28 Ulsan                  0 (GD -4)
29 Seattle Sounders       0 (GD -5, GS-GC 2-7, 3 YC)
30 Pachuca                0 (GD -5, GS-GC 2-7, 4 YC)
31 Wydad AC               0 (GD -6)
32 Urawa Red Diamonds     0 (GD -7)

By confederation:

UEFA: best 1st (PSG or Chelsea), worst 23rd (Porto)
Conmebol: best 4th (Fluminense), worst 24th (Boca Juniors)

AFC: best 7th (Al-Hilal), worst 32nd (Urawa Red Diamonds)
Concacaf: best 15th (Monterrey), worst 30th (Pachuca)
CAF: best 18th (Mamelodi Sundowns), worst 31st (Wydad AC)
OFC: only 27th (Auckland City)

[SNIP]> And here are some impressions from the already eliminated
confeds.

Adding here a bit about Conmebol now: I didn't expect a Conmebol team
to win this thing, given the results of the last 12 years or so of
this tournament in its previous format (that FIFA now calls
"Intercontinental Cup"), but I was surprised by the Brazilian clubs' performance. Fluminense's run to the semifinals was the biggest
surprise, as they were probably the lowest rated of the Brazilian
sides before the cup.

In terms of results, the highlights were Botafogo and Fluminense
beating the most recent Champions League finalists, and Flamengo's
win over the incumbent Conference League champions. Those, plus
Fluminense's win over Al-Hilal (a team worth twice as much as theirs, according to Transfermarkt) were the confederation's great results,
IMHO.

But there were tough times as well. Flamengo was comprehensively
beaten by Bayern Munich, with the 2-4 final score being closer than
the game actually was. The third group stage game was difficult for Fluminense (who could conceivably have lost to Mamelodi Sundowns),
Palmeiras (who had a very tough time against Inter Miami, luckily for
them the other group game went their way before they eventually got
their act together) and even Botafogo (who suffered an unnecessary
scare at the end of their game against Atletico de Madrid, even if
the Spanish were two goals short of their target). In my opinion,
both Palmeiras and Fluminense put out brave stands against Chelsea,
but IMHO there really is no doubt that the English deserved to be the
winners of both of these matches.

Both Argentinian clubs went out in the first round. Boca's draw with
Auckland City looks ugly, but was largely inconsequential - the game
was interrupted due to a climate warning and, when it resumed, Boca
was already eliminated by Benfica's win over Bayern. Boca and River
could conceivably have beaten Benfica and Monterrey, but ultimately
failed to do so and that did them in - of course, had Boca beaten
Benfica they'd have had to beat Auckland City too, but then they'd
resume play with something at stake. Maybe it wouldn't change the
final outcome, but still. I'm not sure they'd have survived those
clubs' next round opponents, Chelsea and Dortmund, though.

In the end, it was 12 UEFA-Conmebol matches, with 6 wins for UEFA, 3
draws and 3 wins for Conmebol (the ones I mentioned in the first
paragraph), 12 goals for Conmebol and 16 for UEFA. 8 of these matches
in the first round (Conmebol 2-3 UEFA, with three draws, 7 Conmebol
goals to 8 UEFA ones) and 4 in the playoff tree (Conmebol 1-3 UEFA,
Conmebol outscored 5-8).

By country, the UEFA-Conmebol divide looks like this:

Brasil: 9 games, 3 wins, 2 draws, 4 losses, 9 goals scored, 10
conceded Argentina: 3 games, 0 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses, 3 goals
scored, 6 conceded

Portugal: 2 games, 0 wins, 2 draws, 0 losses, 2 goals scored, 2
conceded Spain: 1 game, 1 wins, 0 draws, 0 loss, 1 goal scored, 0
conceded France: 1 game, 0 wins, 0 draws, 1 loss, 0 goals scored, 1
conceded Italy: 2 games, 1 win, 0 draws, 1 loss, 2 goals scored, 2
conceded Germany: 3 games, 2 wins, 1 draw, 0 losses, 6 goals scored,
3 conceded England: 3 games, 2 wins, 0 draws, 1 loss, 5 goals scored,
4 conceded

So, Conmebol's Great Undoing came through the hands of Germany and
England, or rather Bayern and Chelsea. With regards to other
confederations, Conmebol's score looks like this:

vs Concacaf: 4 games, 1 win for Conmebol, 3 draws, 5 goals for
Conmebol, 4 for Concacaf.

Brasil: 3 games, 1 win, 2 draws, 0 losses, 5 goals scored, 4 conceded Argentina: 1 drawn game, no goals
United States: 3 games, 0 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss, 4 goals scored, 5
conceded Mexico: 1 drawn game, no goals

vs CAF: 3 games, 2 wins for Conmebol, 1 draw, 4 goals for Conmebol, 0
for CAF.

Brasil: 3 games, 2 wins, 1 draw, 0 losses, 4 goals scored, 0 conceded
Egypt: 1 game, 0 wins, 0 draws, 1 loss, 0 goals scored, 2 conceded
Tunisia: 1 game, 0 wins, 0 draws, 1 loss, 0 goals scored, 2 conceded
South Africa: 1 drawn game, no goals

vs AFC: 2 games, 2 wins for Conmebol, 6 goals for Conmebol, 3 for AFC.

Brasil: 2 games, 2 wins, 0 draws, 0 losses, 6 goals scored, 3 conceded
South Korea: 1 game, 0 wins, 0 draws, 1 loss, 2 goals scored, 4
conceded Saudi Arabia: 1 game, 0 wins, 0 draws, 1 loss, 1 goal
scored, 2 conceded

vs OFC: 1 drawn game, 1 goal apiece.

And only one intraconfederational game, Palmeiras's 1-0 win over
Botafogo in the second round.

Concacaf's record was really, really close. That one win (Botafogo vs
Seattle Sounders) was close to being a draw, while Inter Miami only
collapsed late against Palmeiras. Otoh, Flamengo vs Los Angeles was
basically a friendly. CAF's draw was Mamelodi's scare over Fluminense
in the group stage, and OFC's point was probably the big upset of the
cup.

Best regards,

Lléo

CAF had all its teams eliminated in the first round. I thought Al
Ahly was ok, but they were undone by their loss to Palmeiras and
their failure to beat the hosts. In their last match, Inter
Miami's 71-minute long lead over Palmeiras meant they were never
really in a position to challenge for a spot (and the endgame draw
would eliminate them as well anyway). Mamelodi was fun to watch,
but too inconsistent and probably didn't deserve any better
anyway. Espérance and Wydad were rather mediocre and never really threatened their groups' heavyweights.

AFC's face was "saved" by the Saudi billionaires of Al-Hilal. This
team has European levels of spending I hear (well, not really, but
well above the other Asian sides anyway, going by transfermarkt's
data on squad market values) and has a mostly foreign starting XI,
having started exactly three Saudi players per game all over the
cup - the only Asian nationality on their squad, although, to be
fair, almost all of their sub-ins were Saudi players too. They
also came off unbeaten from their three games against UEFA
opponents, fwiw. The other three teams summed up 8 losses in 9
games, with their only win coming in a meaningless last round game
between two already eliminated teams. In spite of getting that
win, Al Ain was one of the worst teams of the cup, Ulsan was very forgettable as well and I've mentioned my impressions on Urawa up
above.

Concacaf was basically Monterrey and let's give some credit to
Inter Miami for beating Porto (the worst European side) and giving
a scare to Palmeiras, but that was basically it. The other three
teams, like AFC's, lost 8 games out of 9, getting only one draw
from a meaningless third group stage game (Flamengo vs Los Angeles
FC). Monterrey put out a good fight in their three games against UEFA/Conmebol opposition, but still only got 2 points out of these
anyway, so there's that too.

And OFC, well, the least said about it the better. Credit to
Auckland for tying Boca Juniors, it will take a long time for the
Xeneizes to live that down, but they were, by some distance, the
worst team of the cup. No surprises here, I guess, as it is an
amateur side.

Best regards,

Lléo

The media were talking about South America doing so well, and yet South
America have ended up with one semi-finalist, who lost. When have they
ever done any worse than that?

The only really impressive result was Botafogo beating the European
Champions (and possibly eventual World Champions).

Or am I being too hard on South America considering Europe had twice as
many teams playing in it?

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