Fernando Diniz is still, for now, Brazil’s coach, and the comments section under the last post is getting pretty long, so I thought I might as well create a new thread for Fluminense’s Club World Cup campaign.
First up, they have a semifinal against Egyptian club Al-Ahly, who produced a comprehensive and surprising victory over Al-Ittihad, the Saudi club that recently added Karim Benzema, Fabinho, and N’Golo Kanté to its ranks.
Fluminense vs. Al-Ahly
King Abdullah Sports City, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, December 18, 2023
Kickoff: 1:00 PM EST / 3:00 PM BRT / 6:00 PM GMT
Afterwards, they’ll end up in either the final or the third-place match, against either Manchester City or the Japanese club Urawa Red Diamonds.
Club World Cup Final Matches
December 22, 2023
Final: 1:00 PM EST / 3:00 PM BRT / 6:00 PM GMT, King Abdullah Sports City, Jeddah
Third Place: 9:30 AM EST / 11:30 AM BRT / 2:30 PM GMT, Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports City, Jeddah
Brazilian clubs haven’t had the best record of even reaching the final in recent years, nor have CONMEBOL clubs in general. We’re currently on a streak stretching back to 2015 of CONMEBOL clubs only reaching the final in odd-numbered years of the tournament. But this is an odd-numbered year. It’s also the last time the Club World Cup will be played in this weird seven-team format before it’s reborn in 2025 as an every-fourth-year, 32-team summer tournament. While Fluminense, Flamengo and Palmeiras have already qualified for that edition by dint of winning the Copa Libertadores in recent years, it’s probably fair to say that the odds of a Brazilian club reaching the final are about to get substantially lower. This might be the best chance a Brazilian club will have to win it all for a while, even if this Fluminense side don’t look particularly capable of an upset. (I would certainly have tapped Jorge Jesus’ 2019 Flamengo or Abel Ferreira’s 2021 Palmeiras ahead of them.)
Still, right now we’re probably more concerned with how Fernando Diniz will fare, considering how bad his recent outings in charge of Brazil have been. Obviously, breaking the streak and losing in the semifinal would be a further blow to his credibility, but if he ends up leading Fluminense against Manchester City in the final, then reputationally, I think he’s playing with house money. Despite their recent stumbles, it’s hard to argue that City aren’t still the best side of the planet, so any sort of respectable loss to them won’t count as a black mark. And, because they have been stumbling, maybe there’s enough weakness there for Flu to exploit and deliver the Club World Cup to a non-European team for the first time since Tite’s Corinthians beat Chelsea in 2012.
That said, none of this applies if City do get their shit together and wallop Flu by six goals or whatever. That would stain Diniz’s reputation pretty badly. Tactically, it should be an interesting matchup, as Diniz first got notice for his Pep Guardiola-esque possession play before morphing into something a fair bit weirder. Now, he has the chance to face Guardiola himself. (As an intriguing subplot, City have developed a bad habit of losing steam and conceding goals in the last half-hour of games… much as Diniz’s Brazil has been doing in recent months, though less so Fluminense. The last few minutes of this game might get very sloppy.)
For those wondering, it looks like in the US and Canada, the games will be streamed on FIFA’s streaming platform.
Image credit: Tomofumi Kitano, CC BY 2.0 license; image unchanged.
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