The semifinals of the Club World Cup are done, and a final between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain is set for Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. Neither game was particularly close, but we still have plenty of entries for our winners and losers feature. Here’s the breakdown.
Club World Cup Winners
Paris Saint-Germain
You can argue that they benefited from Real Madrid’s self-inflicted errors (and that’s exactly what I’ll do in the losers’ section), but goodness gracious, nobody has ever played club soccer at a higher level than this. The only reason that their 4-0 beatdown wasn’t worse was because they voluntarily stopped trying to score for long stretches in the middle, and their possession of the ball kept Real from mounting any serious threats at PSG’s goal. Even if the Parisians should somehow lose that final (and stranger things have happened), they deserve to go down as having one of the all-time great club seasons in soccer history.
João Pedro
I said over the weekend that he looked good playing with Chelsea’s attackers, and now there’s tangible proof of that in the form of the two goals he scored in the win over Fluminense, one a slow-pitch goal into the opposite corner from outside the box and the other when Enzo Fernández released him on a breakaway. He had been with his new teammates for less than a week, too. Fans of the Premier League contenders should take note: Chelsea will be trouble next season when they have the Brazilian on the pitch.
Marc Cucurella and Thiago Silva
Here’s to goal-line clearances. Chelsea’s Spanish defender with the Troy Polamalu hair prevented an equalizer by Fluminense’s Hércules in the first half. Then the Fluminense defender and former Brazil captain kicked away a Christopher Nkunku shot that got past Weverton to deny his former club team a third goal. Sometimes, it’s goalkeepers who have their defenders to thank for cleaning up their mistakes.
Club World Cup Losers
Raúl Asencio and Thibaut Courtois
Gifted PSG their opening goal when the defender’s unhurried clearance was stolen away by Ousmane Dembélé and the goalkeeper’s attempt to take the ball off Dembélé’s foot went straight to Fabián Ruiz, who shot into the empty net.
Antonio Rüdiger
The German center back joined in Real’s comedy defending class when he gave the ball straight to Dembélé, who promptly scored a goal of his own to put PSG 2-0 up. Talk all you want to about Paris’ quality, but a much lesser team could have taken advantage of those errors.
Real Madrid
The match organizers brought in Michael Buffer to shout, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” before kickoff, but Real put up less resistance than a WWE stooge in their defeat. All the positives from the new García boys’ performances in the quarterfinal win are gone now, as they both started against PSG and couldn’t create anything. While their infusion of talent will help Real on a weekly basis in LaLiga next season, we all know that it’s the Champions League that matters to los madrileños, and as of now, they don’t look close to dethroning Paris.
Jamal Musiala
The Bayern Munich attacker suffered a nasty collision with Gianluigi Donnarumma in the quarterfinal match against PSG, and now it turns out he has a broken leg. We likely would have known that earlier if the broadcasters had shown replays of his foot bent at a 45-degree angle, but you can see why they didn’t. We can argue about whether the PSG keeper should have been sent off (and we know what his opposite number from that game thinks). Regardless, Musiala looks like he will be out of action until we’re deep into fall.