The Club World Cup will dominate the headlines this summer in the football world, with 32 teams from around the globe heading to the United States to compete in a tournament of its kind never seen before. What would once have been the Confederations Cup before the World Cup next year, the Club World Cup will be the dress rehearsal for FIFA’ s main event next year.
Spain will have two representatives in the tournament, with Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid finishing ahead of Barcelona in FIFA’s coefficient ranking. Both will no doubt be amongst the favourites to win the competition, with the odds from Irish bookmakers at betfree.ie suggesting as much, alongside other European giants such as Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain. Real Madrid are the outright favourites at 4/1, while Atletico part as sixth-favourites at 14/1, with the four above and Manchester City also ahead.
On Monday, Real Madrid began the Xabi Alonso era in earnest, with the Basque manager taking over his first training session. However that was an indication of just how uphill his task is to turn things around after a tough season full of injuries and doubts. He began training sessions with just five fit senior players, and while he will get plenty back from injury and international duty before they kick off against Al-Hilal next Wednesday, it will not be a team firing on all cylinders. They will be heavy favourites for that game though at 1/4, and are odds on against Pachuca and RB Salzburg in their other group games.
Alonso’s main task will be to establish his new system, but also cover over some of the cracks visible at the end of Carlo Ancelotti’s mandate. Chief amongst them are shoring up a leaky and inconsistent defence, then looking at how to get the best out of both Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior at the same time. To help him, Los Blancos have brought in Dean Huijsen and Trent Alexander-Arnold to do so.
Atletico Madrid are hard to put your finger on going into the tournament. They looked more than able to hold their own until March with Barcelona and their city rivals, but saw their season crumble in the space of three weeks. The end of their La Liga season was full of inconsistency, and it did not seem like they were making any great progress after their setbacks.
Loan duo Clement Lenglet and Juan Musso have been confirmed as permanent signings, but Los Rojiblancos have not strengthened before the tournament. Perhaps the notable shift will be the presence of Alexander Sorloth ahead of Antoine Griezmann in the starting XI, but it is hard to know what emotional state they will be in. In terms of injuries and fitness, they are in better shape than many of their rivals.
Atletico have a tougher group, with Paris Saint-Germain first up. They are 31/10 outsiders against PSG, but are favourites against Botafogo and Seattle Sounders.
