Club World Cup: Eagles on a global scale

Benfica's professional football team headed to the historic and prestigious 2025 Club World Cup on Sunday, June 8. New to the international calendar, the first edition of the tournament organized by FIFA will take place in the United States between June 14 and July 13.

Qualified for the competition based on points earned in the Champions League performance ranking over the last four years, the red team secured one of the 12 spots allocated to UEFA and will be playing in Group C of the competition alongside Argentina's Boca Juniors, New Zealand's Auckland City, and Germany's Bayern Munich, as determined by the draw held on December 5, 2024.

Benfica's debut in the 2025 Club World Cup is scheduled for 11:00 pm (Mainland Portugal time) on June 16 (Monday) against Boca Juniors at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. After a season below expectations, the Buenos Aires club was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Apertura Tournament by Independiente, with a 0-1 home defeat, and did not even make it to the Libertadores Cup group stage, having fallen in the second qualifying round to Peru's Alianza Lima. The poor results proved fatal for coach Fernando Gago, who was replaced at the helm of Boca Juniors by Miguel Ángel Russo, whose mission is to end a title drought that has lasted since 2022, when the First Division, Super Cup, and League Cup trophies were won.

Subsequently, a new official clash unprecedented in the history of Glorioso, this time both in terms of the opponent and the country where it is based. At 5:00 pm (continental time) on June 20 (Friday), at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, the opponent will be Auckland City, the current four-time champion (2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025) and record holder (13 titles) of the Oceania Champions League. A remarkable achievement for a club that was founded only 21 years ago: February 2004.

Winners of the New Zealand title in 2024, the Navy Blues, coached by New Zealander Paul Posa, are currently in second place in the Northern Zone of the first phase of the local championship and beat West Coast Rangers 2-5 in the early hours of May 30 in their last match (12th round) before traveling to the United States.

For the third and final matchday of Group C, a much more “familiar” duel was in store. At 8:00 pm on June 24 (Tuesday), at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, Benfica and Bayern Munich will face each other for the 14th time in official competition, the last of which took place on November 6, 2024, in the Champions League group stage: a 1-0 victory for the Germans at the Allianz Arena.

In the season that has just ended (2024/25), marked by the debut of Belgian coach Vincent Kompany, the Bavarians regained the Bundesliga title they lost in 2023/24 to Leverkusen thanks to an authoritative campaign: 25 wins, 7 draws, and 2 losses, with a record of 99 goals scored and 32 conceded.

In the Champions League, Bayern were eliminated by Inter in the quarter-finals (1-2 in Munich and 2-2 in Milan), and in the German Cup, their run was halted at home by Leverkusen (0-1) in the round of 16.

Set up in the same format used in the World Cup until the 2022 edition, then organized by Qatar, the 1st Club World Cup features 32 teams from 20 different countries: Portugal, Spain, France, England, Germany, Italy, Austria, United States of America, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Japan, and New Zealand.

The participating teams were divided into eight groups of four teams, with the top two teams from each group qualifying for the knockout stage, which will take place between the round of 16 and the final, scheduled for July 13 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.