South Americans rule Fifa Club World Cup roost

The Fifa Club World Cup football jamboree, expanded to a 32-team tournament, has thrown thrills and frills — and yawns.

There’s the beauty pageant-like entry as each player is announced on speakers when he enters the field, a departure from the usual sight of teams trotting onto the pitch in parallel lines.

Some matches have been played in almost empty arenas despite Fifa — after seeing the slow sale of tickets from an American market not entirely crazy about soccer — slashing ticket prices.

On June 3, The Athletic reported that Ticketmaster reduced the ticket price of the Inter Miami-Al Ahly opening match to $55 (R994), a drastic decrease from the $349 (R6,310) fee announced after the December draw.

After the Miami stokvel of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Sergio Busquets was held to a goalless draw by Jose Riveiro’s Al Ahly, week one proceeded to produce mismatches of mega proportions.

Auckland City have been the unfortunate recipients of a double walloping that resembled a walkover. The New Zealand outfit had hardly recovered from being reduced to a ramshackle by a 10-0 tournament record score by Bayern Munich when — after a more than two-hour weather delay — Benfica buried them in a 6-0 avalanche.

Sprinkling sizzling flavour

South Americans rule the roost, sprinkling sizzling flavour — dazzling silky skills from Flamengo, Palmerias and Boca Juniors on the field, coupled with a carnival spectacle created by their colourful supporters in the stands.

Flamengo flame-grilled Chelsea so bad, Nicolas Jackson was shown a straight red-card for a studs-up challenge in a 3-1 drubbing.

Bayern found the going tougher at Hard Rock Stadium in Florida when the 34-times champions of Germany got more than they bargained for against Boca Juniors, as Vincent Kompany’s men earned a hard fought 2-1 victory over the 35-times kings of Argentina.

“It was a tougher opponent today [than Auckland]. I’m happy to have helped the team with the goal. This is a massive tournament. I’ve always said it’s us against us; that’s our mindset. We want to compete at the highest level. So far so good, we need to carry on,” said England captain Harry Kane, after he scored his first goal of the tournament.

Regarding scoring, Messi reminded all and sundry of the powers of his wicked left foot when the little Argentine maestro whipped a trademark free kick that curled over and nestled into the top corner to register one of the standout strikes of the showpiece thus far, giving expression to the oft said statement — form is temporary, class is permanent.

On individual players, there’ve been contrasting fortunes that stood in stark contrast for two players. While Brazilian whiz-kid Estevao Willian, the 18-year-old Palmerias winger bound for Chelsea, brought his brilliance for the world to see, those of Real Madrid persuasion in Spain were left unimpressed with what they’ve seen of Trent.

While some have drawn similarities between Estevao and Lamine Yamal, Palmerias coach Abel Ferreira recently told BBC: “This player is different from everything I’ve ever seen.”

Zero rating for Trent

Publications in Spain were savage to the former Liverpool right-back in their player ratings. AS gave Alexander-Arnold, who was “signed to terrorise the opposition” and “produce immediately”, a zero rating.

SPORT felt his debut display deserved five out of 10, saying: “He never looked comfortable or created any advantage. Physically far from his best, it wasn’t the best debut for the Englishman who also failed to contribute offensively.

“There has been much talk about Trent Alexander-Arnold ahead of his debut, but it was an underwhelming one. He was not at his best defensively, and he struggled to make an impact in attack before being substituted.”

To be fair to the man who spoke sanguine Spanish during his presentation, the 1-1 draw against Al Hilal was his first game as a Los Blanco as coach Xabi Alonso was also making his debut in the Madrid dugout.

He has a chance to make amends for the patchy performance in a must-win match against Pachuca, unless the Mexicans prove too chili-hot to handle for the Scouser.

This maiden edition of the expanded CWC is showing that there’s more to football than the usual European diet we consume.