News: 2025 FIFA Club World Cup: General [Multiple Rs]

I took Bellingham's comment to be a general one about CWC piaying surfaces. Real also played a game in Miami, one of the stadia there were also complaints about at last year's Copa America.

 

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Depends. It probably will be organized better with Domes next year and night games.
If Euro teams are going to complain then it will be a psychological advantage for teams that play in heat all the time (Colombia hopefully.)

 

That is fair, but I still think it is funny that Charlotte is not going to be one of the stadiums used and that is when he complained.

 

Benfica beats Bayern for the first time in 14 games.

Wins the Group.

Boca is officially eliminated.

Who had that on their bingo card after the first match day?

 

Chelsea is probably celebrating. They should be favored against Benfica.
Flamengo will play Bayern.

 

Assuming Chelsea wins or draws against Esperance of course.

 

As I alluded to in a previous post the stadiums being used for the World Cup are going to use better grass that has been tested for many years by University scientists.
They will also have many months for the fields to settle so that it will be much more ideal than Charlotte.

So it would be hard for me to think that something similar to Charlotte can happen when there is better preperation.

 

Some people for sure. We were even saying on here that Benfica v Bayern will be a tight match since Bayern will probably field a B team, which they did.

Bad for Flamengo. Not only having to play Bayern, but a rested Bayern.

 

Not sure people thought they would win the Group after going down 2-0 to Boca and never beating Bayern in their history. And Bayern looking so strong.

Sure, saying it would be a tight match I guess seems likely.

 

I suggest viewing coach Enrique's entire post-match interview. Original audio helps as DAZN English translators minced his statements.

He complained about both Seattle stadium and training surfaces being substandard, in comparison to UEFA-tournament pitches.
Also, said that he could see how substandard surfaces would benefit certain teams, but not his.

2025 CWC R16 match PSG vs Inter Miami will be in Atlanta, a venue heavily criticized by ARG coach+players for similar surface defects in CA 2024.

Even USMNT player W.McKennie was aware of how players got shafted on the pitch while Conmebol lined its pockets then. Now it is FIFA's turn in 2025.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5582260/2024/06/21/copa-america-field-conditions-weston-mckennie/

“If you look at the Euros, they’re all playing on great fields, great grass, football-specific stadiums, soccer-specific stadiums, and you see the quality of the football,”

“You can play a 1-2 without wondering if the ball is gonna bounce up before you hit it. You can pass the ball back to the keeper not being afraid that it’s going to bounce over his foot. You see a different type of soccer.
:
“Everyone knows that football is a big business, it’s all about the dollars and money in pockets but at the end of the day we need the best conditions to be able to do what we love and get the best out of us and the best results.

“Like I said, not having to worry about whether the ball is going to bounce 10ft in the air when it hits the ground or 1ft.”​

 

The underlying issue is insufficient substrate under whatever hybrid grass was overlaid at each 2025 CWC venue.

Back in May 2025, Seattle gov't approved funding for replacing Lumen Field turf... for 2026 WC matches. Today, the Seattle venue uses rolled-out hybrid grass on top of turf+padding, on top of a hard surface. No wonder the ball ricochets.

While hybrid grass was overlaid at Atlanta ahead of 2025 CWC, the engineering firm described the short-lived CWC hybrid grass overlay while contrasting it to the planned 2026 WC surface.

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/at...fa-club-world-cup/SIL2N4SJ65ANRL56H5RWAUF3F4/

Crews have worked nearly around the clock installing the hybrid turf, mostly natural with some artificial carpeting woven in.

“This particular grass has been growing between 12-18 months,” said Nick Pappas, MBS Pitch Advisor.

The cool-weather grass was trucked in from a sod farm in Colorado. It will need the roof closed, the temperature steady and grow lights on it for hours in between the six matches over three weeks.
:
“We’ll learn a lot of things this year, but a little bit of a different situation next year. We won’t do an overlay next year. We’ll do more substantial installation where we actually remove the artificial surface, remove pad beneath it, remove the asphalt, go down about 7-8 inches,” Pappas said.

After the matches wrap up July 4th weekend, the new grass goes away and the field returns to the artificial turf underneath it.​

 

I wonder how hard it would be to book exclusively soccer specific stadiums or ones with natural grass if the CWC returns to USA. Considering they didn't exactly fill every NFL venue anyway they wouldn't be losing out much. But I wonder if it would be harder to schedule with MLS still in season. Would hope they avoid the Gold Cup clash of schedules too

 

Chelsea up 2:0 at the half against Esperance and that probably decides Group D. Both goals scored in stoppage time. Ouch.

Nice to see Auckland City with a positive result in what is probably their last CWC match ever.

 

Does the US have suitable 30K or 40K venues? It seems like it’s either MLS stadiums (20K) or NFL venues (60K+).

 

Nashville is 30k, that's it. But there's a handful of 25+k ones if that's enough, though one is Portland which doesn't have grass.

 

Snapdragon Stadium (35K) in San Diego, home of San Diego FC and San Diego Wave, would be the most prominent example.

There are quite a few college football stadiums in the 30-50K range, but most of them have various issues making them not very suitable. Artificial turf, narrow field space, aluminum bench seating, locations outside of major cities, would be issues applying to some, not all, of them.

 

I really hope so !

 

I live in Japan so I don't know all that's being said about it but I reckon Spain is also interested in hosting it so it should be done together to rehearse the cooperation in organizing.
It will also depend on how many teams will be in it, there were some talks about a 48 teams expansion which I'm not a fan of.

 

Not sure when or where Bayern looked strong. They are coming off a mediocre UCL season where they stumbled through the group stage and almost got knocked out by Celtic. Never looked like a contender to win it.

In any case, as highlighted, they played a B team, so how strong they looked against a semi-pro team 9-10 days ago is doubly irrelevant.

 

All of today’s matches:

Benfica - Bayern 1:0
Auckland City - Boca 1:1
ES Tunis - Chelsea 0:3
LAFC - Flamengo 1:1

All of Chelsea’s goals happened in stoppage time.

LAFC were very richly rewarded for their first and only goal of the tournament. Flamengo dominated that match throughout and should have won with ease.

In summary - for LAFC. They excelled when they got the (home) MLS Leagues Cup treatment in the play-in against Club America. Not so much once they got the Liga MX Leagues Cup treatment in the tournament proper.

(I.e. three different away venues in nine days)

 

European giants humbled as Club World Cup script gets rewritten:
https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/european-giants-humbled-club-world-cup-script-gets-rewritten-2025-06-24/#:~:text=PHILADELPHIA, June 24 (Reuters),grateful opponents from distant continents.

Bit early for these discussions. Only Porto have been truly bad. Let’s revisit this after the R16.