2005 FIFA Club World Championship

Background

The 2005 tournament was created as a merger between the Intercontinental Cup and the earlier FIFA Club World Championships. The previous of these had been running as an annual tournament between the champions of Europe and South America since 1960; the latter had undergone just one tournament, the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship. The 2001 tournament had been cancelled when FIFA's marketing partner ISL went bankrupt. To celebrate the marriage between the two competitions, a new trophy was introduced by FIFA.

As a result of this merger, the tournament was conceived as being smaller than the original Club World Championship, which had lasted two weeks, yet building on the one game format of the Intercontinental Cup. Six clubs were invited to take part in the tournament, one representing each regional football confederation. The competition's name, which was the simple union between the name of the two previous merging competitions, was evidently too long, and was going to be reduced the following year, becoming the FIFA Club World Cup.

Format

The competition was a knockout tournament so each team played two or three matches. The champions of the four "weaker" confederations played in the quarter-finals; the losers played in a fifth place play-off. The winners were then joined by the European and South American champions in the semi-finals; the losers played in a third place play-off.

The matches were held in Tokyo's National (Olympic) Stadium, Toyota Stadium in Toyota, Aichi, near Nagoya and the International Stadium in Yokohama, where the final was played. For marketing purposes it was known as the FIFA Club World Championship Toyota Cup.

Qualified teams

It was all six clubs' first appearance in the FIFA Club World Championship.

Venues

Tokyo, Yokohama and Toyota were the three cities to serve as venues for the 2005 FIFA Club World Cup.

Squads

Main article: 2005 FIFA Club World Championship squads

Match officials

Matches

| team-width = 180 | score-width = 40

| RD1-text1 = 11 December – Tokyo | RD1-team1 = Al-Ittihad | RD1-score1 = 1 | RD1-team2 = Al Ahly | RD1-score2 = 0

| RD1-text2 = 12 December – Toyota | RD1-team3 = Sydney FC | RD1-score3 = 0 | RD1-team4 = Saprissa | RD1-score4 = 1

| RD2-text1 = 14 December – Tokyo | RD2-team1 = Al-Ittihad | RD2-score1 = 2 | RD2-team2 = São Paulo | RD2-score2 = 3

| RD2-text2 = 15 December – Yokohama | RD2-team3 = Saprissa | RD2-score3 = 0 | RD2-team4 = Liverpool | RD2-score4 = 3

| RD3-text1 = 18 December – Yokohama | RD3-team1 = São Paulo | RD3-score1 = 1 | RD3-team2 = Liverpool | RD3-score2 = 0

| RD2-text3 = 16 December – Tokyo | RD2-team5 = Al Ahly | RD2-score5 = 1 | RD2-team6 = Sydney FC | RD2-score6 = 2

| RD3-text2 = 18 December – Yokohama | RD3-team3 = Al-Ittihad | RD3-score3 = 2 | RD3-team4 = Saprissa | RD3-score4 = 3

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Al-Montashari Ceni

Gerrard

Match for fifth place

Carney

Match for third place

Job Gómez

Final

Main article: 2005 FIFA Club World Championship final

Goalscorers

Reaction

The tournament was quite well received, although some commentators have stated that, excluding São Paulo and Liverpool, the quality of football was quite poor leading to a view that it might have been better retaining the two continent format of the European/South American Cup.

Awards

References

References

1. "CNN.com – Sao Paulo lift World Clubs trophy – Dec 19, 2005". CNN.