First things first, it excites me that you’re here, reading this and about to follow my thoughts on the Club World Cup.

A quick heads-up, this is a long read. Properly long. And if you came here expecting slick graphics or photo-heavy highlights, this might not be what you’re after. It’s all words, all feeling, all reflection.

Also worth noting, that I’m writing this in the immediate aftermath of the first round of matches. So, if you’re reading this a few days down the line and more games have come and gone, keep that in mind. Some of these thoughts may have aged. Some may not.

Right. Let’s get into it.

It was around the 63rd minute of Pachuca vs RB Salzburg when I realized I was completely absorbed. Not passively watching, but actually in it. Feeling it. The game hadn’t been technically perfect, but it breathed. In a way that a lot of modern football doesn’t anymore. The fans didn’t wait for perfection to make noise. It was unfiltered, like someone had wiped the tactical grease off the lens.

By then, I was nine games from this newly expanded Club World Cup, just over half of the opening round. And I felt something I hadn’t felt watching top-level European football in a while, curiosity, not expectation. Wonder, not analysis. It was a little chaotic. It was refreshing.

There’s a strange honesty that creeps into the game when it isn’t framed by the rhythms of Champions League polish. These were clubs like Urawa Red Diamonds, Ulsan Hyundai, Mamelodi Sundowns. Names that don’t circulate on top UK tabloids or clog up algorithm-led transfer gossip. But on the pitch, they played with a purpose not shackled by narratives. It was football as it’s played when you’re trying to prove something, not sell something.

So, Maybe we’ve become too Europe-centric. Or maybe we’ve just forgotten that football doesn’t only belong to Europe’s five richest leagues.

This isn’t me trying to romanticise the chaos or slap some exotic filter on non-European football, that happens far too often. I’m saying it because watching this tournament has felt like tuning into the same song, just played on a different frequency.

River Plate fans didn’t trickle in, they flooded the stands, voices sharp, ready to bleed for the badge, same for the Wydad Athletic Fans who kept singing all through their game against Manchester City. Urawa’s players didn’t overthink, they broke forward with this beautiful kind of abandon. And for a moment, you remember that in other parts of the world, football isn’t a stepping stone or a content engine. It’s history. It’s weight. It’s something passed down, not just clicked upon.

And that joy, the kind that comes from watching football still tied to the streets, to community, to something personal and lived is what made those nine matches feel like more than just football. They weren’t just games. They were a kind of emotional reset. A reminder of why we care in the first place.

The sound is different. There’s something holy about watching football with noise that feels like it has soul behind it, not just choreography. 

We’re told by analysts, pundits, coaches, and now algorithmic data that football is about structure. Build-up. Zones. Compactness. Numerical superiority. These things matter. Yes, they do. They help win games. But they also sometimes strangle the life out of them.

There’s still room in the game for audacity. And if you’re watching only the top-tier European matches, you might forget that.

One of the quiet joys of this tournament for me has been watching the veterans. Those players who once carried the weight of world-class status — still finding ways to matter.

Sergio Ramos still defends like it means something. Not just a job to do, but a craft to be mastered. He barks orders, throws his body in the way.

Then there’s Sergio Busquets. He hasn’t sprinted in years, but he hasn’t needed to. The legs may not move fast, but the mind is always a pass ahead. He doesn’t so much cover ground as bend the game to his rhythm.

And Thiago Silva, still out there timing tackles reading play like a man who’s already seen it twice.

Watching them feels like flipping through an old photo album, only this time the pictures move.

This isn’t some farewell tour. They’ve shown up to win, nothing sentimental about it. And that seriousness, that refusal to fade quietly, gives them a presence that lingers well beyond their years.

You can only really love global football if you stop seeing it as “lesser.” If you stop using Champions League knockouts as the measuring stick for everything.

The Club World Cup gives authenticity, tension, cultural context, sonic diversity, improvisation.

It’s not supposed to replicate what already exists in Europe. It’s supposed to show what exists “outside” it.

And for that, I’m grateful I watched these nine games. They reminded me of what made me fall in love with football in the first place: not structure, but soul.

On some stories we don’t tell enough.

There’s something magical about the likes of Pachuca, River Plate, Mamelodi Sundowns, Wydad Casablanca and the likes, not because of aesthetics or any obvious romantic pull, but because they feel like a footballing ecosystem built from within. 

Pachuca’s academy is famous in Mexico, their structure methodical, yet there’s nothing sterile about how they play. Against Salzburg, they played like they had been waiting for this stage, waiting for people to finally tune in.

River Plate reminds you that football identity is not just about what you do with the ball, but how you carry the ball. How you lose. How you win. And the silence that follows the final whistle.

No team fascinated me more across the games I watched than  “Mamelodi Sundowns”. For years, African football has been lazily characterised as chaotic, energetic, imprecise. But what Sundowns represent is a direct challenge to that stereotype.

Here’s a side with continental swagger, yes, but also tactical literacy. Their shape is calculated. Their movements are choreographed but never predictable. When they played against Ulsan, there were periods where they pressed in waves, trapping passing lanes, forcing long balls, creating midfield turnovers. This wasn’t vibes football. This was a plan.

And yet they still found room for flamboyance. A no-look pass here. A backheel in tight space. They haven’t shed their cultural skin to conform. Instead, they’ve weaponised it. And in doing so, they’ve started a conversation: What if the next tactical revolution doesn’t come from Germany or Spain, but from South Africa?

There’s something powerful in seeing a team from the Global South play not to prove they belong, but to show they already ‘do’

The Tournament has Made Me Rethink Football’s Map

There’s an uncomfortable truth that doesn’t get much airtime in Europe. Football was global long before Europe started selling TV rights and exporting tactical ideas. The quality elsewhere hasn’t suddenly spiked, what’s shifted is how willing we are to look beyond our usual frame.

This Club World Cup expanded, a bit clunky, still finding its feet, at least tries to shift that perspective. It throws up fixtures we’re not trained to care about. Monterrey vs Inter Milan. Urawa vs River Plate. These aren’t flukes or sideshows. They’re glimpses of what the next phase of football might look like.

And after watching nine of these games, one thing’s clear, meaning isn’t owned. Passion isn’t a European trademark. The game feels just as alive out here, maybe even more.

This tournament has reminded me that football fans don’t need to be sold the idea of love. They just need a platform to express it.

We all know this Club World Cup isn’t just about football, and has a huge commercial value.

FIFA’s decision to expand the tournament to 32 teams, aligning it with the Champions League and World Cup formats, wasn’t purely out of a desire to democratise global football. It’s part of a larger push to centralise commercial attention, to make FIFA not just a regulatory body but a content machine.

We’re now witnessing a sport governed not by the rhythms of the pitch, but by the calendar of global sponsorships. Every match, every kick-off time, every continent represented, there’s always a marketing logic beneath it.

But here’s where the friction lies: “football doesn’t always want to be monetised”. Sometimes, it just wants to be played.

We’re now used to watch football with European eyes. Tactics are judged by Premier League standards. Players are measured by whether they could “make it in Europe.”

But the Club World Cup has done something rare: it’s given oxygen to other footballing stories.

There’s an unspoken liberation in that. For once, River Plate fans don’t have to justify their existence to a Chelsea audience. For once, Sundowns aren’t a novelty, they’re just a football club, playing football.

And in a way, that’s what this tournament gets righ. It ‘relevels’ the narrative, even if only for a few weeks. It allows us to ask the question: what if football doesn’t need to be centralised in Europe at all? Just the way we mostly do now.

This entire experience has made me question the way I consume football. It’s not just what we watch, it’s how. When you follow only the most broadcast leagues, you begin to conflate ‘visibility’ with ‘importance’. You start to believe that a Tuesday night in Turin matters more than a Thursday evening in Tokyo.

But it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.

A brilliant flick from a Pachuca winger matters just as much, especially to the kid who grew up idolising him in the stands. A bold, looping cross from a Urawa full-back should live in highlight reels, not just for what it does statistically, but for what it means emotionally.

Football is full of wonder. We’ve just stopped looking for it.

I watched nine out of sixteen matches in the first round of the Club World Cup.

I saw how football lives in places we’re taught to overlook. I saw beauty in decisions that didn’t always make sense on paper. I saw fans who weren’t performing joy for cameras, but living it. I saw football not as a product, but as inheritance.

And more than anything, I felt awe, I felt connection.

So no, this tournament may not be so perfect. But the soul is there.

Football is still beautiful. You just have to change the channel.