GOAL US looks at the main storylines from the semifinals, and previews the PSG-Chelsea final in the Club World Cup XI
Well, that was a rude wake up call. Anyone who knew anything about football could have told you that it was going to be a rough afternoon for Real Madrid in the Club World Cup semifinals. PSG are miles better, and Los Blancos are a tactical mess in their own right. But a battering of that magnitude? Wow.
Perhaps, too, it's the game the CWC needed, something so lop-sided that even casuals could admit that one team is trying. Deliver that kind of drama over and over, and there might just be something here.
It is a shame, then, that the other side of the draw delivered something more tepid. Chelsea played a lot like Chelsea against Fluminense: not particularly well, but with just enough on the day against a respectable opponent. Most would have been rooting for Fluminense as is, but there was, in a similar way, a cruel inevitability to things.
Still, it seemed as if whichever team qualified would be treated to the luxury of being absolutely spanked by the Parisians in the final. That might just be the key to it all. The CWC is supposed to determine the best club in the world, and the club team in the world goes and wins it. No way anything else happens, right?
GOAL US presents the Club World Cup XI, with key observations heading into the final.
Getty Images1Hala Madrid?
Peer over the cavernous bowl at MetLife, host stadium for the CWC semifinals and this weekend's final, and you would have seen a sea of white. Wednesday's clash between PSG and Madrid was played in the Bernabeu USA, Blancos fans comfortably outnumbering Parisian supporters with 90 percent support.
That wasn't a massive surprise. Madrid always travel well, and even when they don't, their global reach is immense. It is a shame, from their perspective, that they showed up to see a thorough beating.
AdvertisementGetty Images Sport2PSG are so, so, so good
PSG absolutely hammered Madrid here – but what did you expect? The Parisians are on another level to everyone else. By their standards, this is a bad Madrid team, in between eras and figuring things out under a new manager. Still, it's not very Madridian to lose a semifinal so convincingly. That they did is a little bit funny, but also speaks to the inevitability of by far the best side in the world.
AFP3Alonso's tactical conundrum
Alonso insisted after the game that Madrid are very much a project. He admitted that it would take a year – maybe even two – for Los Blancos to find their best. Good luck with that. Alonso is a smart manager, but he is also facing the one problem that even the great Carlo Ancelotti couldn't solve: how do you fit Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr and Jude Bellingham into the same team – while also getting everyone to defend? The simple answer is perhaps "you don't." But you also can't bench anyone. The balance here is atrocious.
Getty Images Sport4An undeserved farewell
A word, too, on Luka Modric, who really feels like an unfair victim here. The great Croatian was in tears less than a month ago as he played what should have been his final game for Madrid. He walked off the Santiago Bernabeu field, headband in hand, eyes glassy, the crowd on its feet.
That should be the lasting image of his Madrid career. Instead, there's that of the bemused man standing in an oven in New Jersey, wondering how he had been involved in a 4-0 battering. Milan can't come quickly enough.