When Will Seattle Sounders Play in the Clubs World Cup?


The Seattle Sounders beat the Mexican Pumas 3-0 on Wednesday night to win the Concacaf Champions League, with a 5-2 overall win in the two-leg final. The victory made Seattle the first team from Major League Soccer to lift the trophy in a generation and gave the United States the continental title it had coveted for more than 20 years.

It should also make Seattle the first MLS team to play in the FIFA Club World Cup.

Other than that, no one, not even FIFA, is sure when this event will take place or what it will look like. The tournament’s traditional December window is unavailable this year for the following reasons: World Cup in Qatarand big plans An expanded Club World Cup in China they went nowhere after they were announced and were subsequently interrupted immediately by the coronavirus pandemic.

“No clues,” a FIFA official said in a text message when asked when Seattle can expect to attend the event.

The Club World Cup has been held annually since 2005, and representatives of each of FIFA’s global confederations face off to determine a club world champion. Top European teams dominated the event, including Barcelona, ​​Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Chelsea who have lifted the trophy over the past decade. Facing such teams in an international competition has been a dream come true for many MLS players, managers and fans.

FIFA, which manages the Club World Cup, expand the tournamentand he put a plan on the table for a 24-team tournament that was shifted to the summer and held every four years instead of every year. He approved the amendment at a meeting in Shanghai in October 2019 and Gave hosting rights to China For the first edition in 2021. The coronavirus made this plan impractical in a short time.

The pandemic-delayed 2021 Club World Cup, held in February and won by Chelsea, was nominally the last in the old, smaller format. Keeping another one in 2022 could be problematic, as league schedules are already compressed by the mandatory hiatus caused by the World Cup kicking off in November. It was rumored that the first extended version will be made in the summer of 2023, but there is currently no official date for the event.

According to the original plans for the extended tournament, three teams from the Concacaf region – covering North and Central America and the Caribbean – would participate. Although official qualifying criteria have not been announced, it’s likely that one of them will be the Sounders after Wednesday’s victory.

An American team has played almost once in the Club World Cup before. The first Club World Cup in 2000 was an eight-team event in Brazil. That year was the last year an American team, the Los Angeles Galaxy, won the continental championship. Thus, for the 2001 world event spanning 12 teams, Galaxy were duly entered along with Real Madrid and other teams from around the world.

However, financial concerns and the bankruptcy of a sponsor caused the event to be shelved. It was revived in its current form in 2005. It’s too late for the galaxy. The Mexican and Costa Rican teams have won the championship every year since then – to the great disappointment of MLS.

Now that the Sounders have broken that streak, they and MLS are hoping the newly expanded event – whenever and whatever it looks like – will go more smoothly.

Tariq Panja contributed to the reporting.



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