How the First FIFA Club World Cup Was Born
The Club World Cup has been a topic of discussion in recent times due to the various changes that have taken place in relation to this tournament and all that has been the change from the traditional Intercontinental Cup to this latest format. However, there is a kind of missing link, or rather, a little-remembered one, which is the first reference to a Club World Cup organised by FIFA.
A Bit of Context
Since 1960, the Intercontinental Cup, a tournament organised by UEFA and Conmebol, was the competition that defined the best club in the world, in a match between the European champion (European Cup or Champions League) and the Copa Libertadores champion. Although the tournament gained a good impact and became a tradition within the world of football, it was not very inclusive with the rest of the confederations, limiting the recognition of the best in the world to two confederations.FIFA saw this as an opportunity to create a new tournament that would take into account the other confederations, in a way bringing a certain justice by giving the champions of each continent the opportunity to fight for that maximum recognition. Also, FIFA, whose main source of income is the men's World Cup for national teams, has sought a tournament that could serve as another strong economic source, and so at the end of the 20th century, it proposed to create such a tournament, an idea that has been recycled in recent times with a tournament that is bigger and even more money focused.
It was decided that the tournament would be held in January 2000 as a way of welcoming the new millennium and there were four possible candidates to host the tournament although a number of others had expressed interest. The final candidates were Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil, with Brazil being chosen.
The Tournaments Format
The tournament had 8 participants, and the format was two groups of 4 teams, where the first of each group faced each other in the final while the second played in a match for third place. Each group played in a different stadium, Group A played in the Morumbi Stadium in Sao Paulo and Group B in the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, where the two final matches (final and match for third place) were also played.The qualified teams were Corinthians, as "hosts", having been the champions of the Brasileirao in 1998, a team that had some illustrious names such as Dida, Vampeta, Ricardinho (these three would be world champions with Brazil in 2002), Edu (who played several seasons with Arsenal and Valencia), Marcos Senna (European champion with Spain in 2008) and Freddy Rincon (former Real Madrid player).
Real Madrid qualified as winners of the 1998 Intercontinental Cup. At that time, Vicente Del Bosque was taking over the reins of the team after the departure of Toshack a few weeks before the start of the tournament. That version of Real Madrid was the last of the Lorenzo Sanz era, which had names like Raúl, Fernando Morientes, Roberto Carlos, Fernando Hierro, and also included a young (and still quite unknown) Samuel Eto'o, Iker Casillas and Nicolas Anelka, the latter having been the star signing of that season for the Madrid club.
Al-Nassr, champions of the Asian Super Cup in 2008 and Raja Casablanca, as champions of the African Champions League, completed Group A.
In Group B, there was Manchester United, who 6 months earlier had won the treble (Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup) and who had the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson on the bench and players like Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Jaap Stam, Teddy Sheringham, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Roy Keane and the famous generation of '92. Vasco da Gama qualified for the 1998 Copa Libertadores and in January 2000, it had some big names like Romário and Edmundo and some who would become better known a few years later like Juninho Pernambucano (a Lyon legend) and Helton (Porto goalkeeper for several seasons).
The representative of Central and North America was Necaxa, the 1999 CONCACAF Champions Cup champion, which at that time had the Ecuadorian duo of Alex Aguinaga and Agustín Delgado. Finally, the eighth team was South Melbourne, qualified for being the winner of the 1999 Oceania Club Championship and coached by Ange Postecoglou.
The tournament
The competition was nicknamed in Europe as "El Mundialito" or "The little World Cup", indicating that it did not generate much interest and this was reflected in the performance of the two European teams. Real Madrid finished second in their group by a goal difference over Corinthians while Manchester United finished third in Group B, behind leaders Vasco da Gama and second-placed Necaxa. Real Madrid was then forced to face the Mexican team in the match for third place, where they would end up tied at one goal, with Raúl scoring for the Spanish team and Delgado for Necaxa. The match would go to penalties where the Mexican team would win 4-3.The final was all Brazilian, something that sparked a lot of interest in the South American country, which made the Maracana full and the atmosphere quite good and lively. On the pitch, it was the opposite, a match with hardly any goal chances that ended in a boring 0-0. In the penalty shootout, both Dida and Helton stopped a penalty and when the decisive one came, Edmundo missed it and gave the title to Corinthians. That tournament ended with Anelka and Romário as top scorers, with 3 goals each, Dida was recognized as the best goalkeeper and Edilson of Corinthians, as the best player of the tournament.
The tournament was to have a second edition the following year in Spain and was scheduled to be played in the middle of the year, however, for economic reasons, mainly related to a Swiss marketing company that worked with FIFA, the tournament was cancelled, first until 2003, although finally it would be in 2005 when a second edition would be played with another format and in Japan.