History awaits. Tomorrow afternoon at 5pm (Spanish time) Barça take on CONCACAF champions, the Mexican team Atlante, in the semi final of the Fifa Club World Cup. The Club World Cup, previously known as the Intercontinental Cup, is the one tournament we have never won, having lost the Final in 1992 and 2006. Winning this tournament will not only confirm us as the World Champions, we will also go down in history as being the first team ever to win all six official competitions in one calendar year.
Unfortunately we will be without Leo Messi for the semi final but he is working hard to get fit for a theoretical final on Saturday. In his place we will probably see Pedro Rodriguez who is seeking his own personal place in history as if he can score a goal in this tournament he will become Barça’s first player to score in six different competitions in one season. Xavi Hernandez will also make history tomorrow if he plays by becoming only the second player ever to reach 500 official games for Barça. Xavi made his debut for the club against Mallorca in the Spanish Supercopa on 18th August 1998 and just seems to get better and better with each season, also if Xavi scores tomorrow it will be his 50th goal for the club. The only player who had so far reached 500 games was the legendary Migueli who played a total of 548 games between 1973 and 1989. The way Xavi is going he should have no problem to beat that record in the not too distant future.
I’m afraid I can’t claim to know much about Atlante. They were formed in 1916 and have only won the Mexican league three times. The last time was in 2007 which meant they qualified for the equivalent of the Champions League in the CONCACAF zone, and by beating Cruz Azul to win this tournament in May 2009 they qualified for this edition of the Club World Cup. On Saturday they beat Auckland City 3-0 to earn a place in tomorrow’s semi-final. Apart from that I can only go on what I’ve read in the papers this week, their coach is José Guadalupe Cruz and their most important players are goalkeeper Federico Vilar, midfielder Christian Bermudez, and top scorer Gabriel Pereyra. They also have a forward called Rafael Marquez and ex-Real Madrid player Santiago Solari is also in their squad. If any of you readers know any more about Atlante please send a comment.
Barça will need one last great effort to win this tournament, after the long journey involved in arriving to Abu Dhabi, combined with the recent long trips to Kazan and Kiev it will not be surprising if we are a bit jaded. We will also have to deal with the heat as the latest weather report put the temperature at 26ºC while it has been pretty cold the last few days in Barcelona. However, we go into the tournament as favourites and we shouldn’t really need any excuses. We may not have been at our best this season but we still have one hell of a team. I can see some history about to be made.
Possible starting XI: Valdés; Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Abidal; Xavi, Busquets, Keita; Pedro, Ibrahimovic, Iniesta.
My prediction: Barça 2 Atlante 0
