The new Club World Cup will kick off this Sunday, with 32 teams from six continents going to compete. To this end, The Athletic analyzed the popularity and highlights of each group’s qualifying. Author Jeff Rueter brings us an analysis of Group C.
This year’s Club World Cup Group C is full of highlights. Not only are there Bayern and Benfica, which are famous in Europe, but also Boca Youth, the iconic team of South American football. The last team is Auckland City, a New Zealand team that won the third place in the 2014 Club World Cup and shocked the world. So, looking forward to the future of this group, is Bayern ready to win the New World Club Cup? Can Benfica achieve great results in America with Di Maria’s last dance? Can Boca youth overcome the recent downturn and become the dark horse of the event? Auckland City, can they recreate their glory more than ten years ago and become disruptors?
Schedule at a glance
• June 16: Bayern Munich vs Auckland City (Beijing time: 00:00)
• June 17: Boca Youth vs Benfica (Beijing time: 06:00)
• June 21: Benfica vs Auckland City (Beijing time: 00:00)
• June 21: Bayern Munich vs Boca Youth (Beijing time: 09:00)
• June 25: Auckland City vs Boca Youth (Beijing time: 03:00)
• June 25: Benfica vs Bayern Munich (Beijing time: 03:00)
• June 25: Benfica vs Bayern Munich (Beijing time: 03:00)
class=”sub-tlt”>Quick-up Popularity: Bayern
As long as Bayern plays in the game, they can naturally become popular teams.
But then again, Bayern’s life in the Bundesliga has not been easy recently. Their monopoly position in the Bundesliga for 11 consecutive seasons in the 23/24 season was ended by Leverkusen led by Alonso. Fortunately, Bayern, who learned from his mistakes, performed very proactively in the 24/25 season. Bayern under the new coach Kompani has a more proactive and entertaining game style. His unique calmness in Manchester City’s career helped ease the tension in the high-pressure locker room.
As most veterans who started their ten-year dominance faded out, Kompani relied heavily on a new generation of players.Musiara made a well-known leaps ahead of her injury at the end of the 24/25 season, while Yu Pamecano established himself as a reliable central defender. Olis performed well after joining from Crystal Palace, and Harry Kane joined. He can continue to contribute goals and assists.
In the 34 rounds of the Bundesliga and 14 Champions League games, Bayern’s ability to control the progress of the game is unique among the top European teams.
A total of 26 teams from the Bundesliga, Premier League, La Liga and Serie A participated in the Champions League or the UEFA Cup, but none of the teams had an average possession rate higher than Bayern’s 67.2%. At the same time, Bayern has 80 goals, second only to Barcelona with 82 goals, with an expected goal difference of 76.2, which is far ahead of Barcelona (+61.5). Among the sample teams, Bayern also has the highest front-court ball possession rate, reaching a suffocating 76.2%.
Under Kompani, Bayern’s secret to success is not only having and regaining more offensive touches than their opponents, but also committed to accumulating three in the midfield
In the Bundesliga and Champions League, nearly half of the ball-handling time occurs in the midfield third (48.6%), while 31.1% of the touches occur in Bayern’s offensive third. This strategy makes defensive third relatively less intrusive (stayed far from the backfield) and provides plenty of time for a talented and balanced lineup to find ways to exploit the opponent’s defensive weaknesses.
In the early stages of last month’s Bundesliga finale, Bayern was aggressive and tried to lose suspense by scoring early goals. As shown in the picture above, when organizing the offense, Kompany’s players boldly adopted a 2-4-4 formation, mainly keeping the midfielders in the central three zones and rib areas of the court, while the width was provided by two wingers close to the wing. This created a variety of pass lines to deliver shells to Kane and others, and almost always a teammate was ready to respond at any time to prevent the ball from losing.
Focus showdown
Although Benfica and Bayern are traditional giants with a long history in European football, their confrontation is extremely one-sided. Bayern has never lost in 11 matches with the Portuguese team and won 8 games.From this perspective, perhaps the opening match between Benfica and Boca Youth can reveal more highlights.
Before Messi landed in the United States, the Argentine Football Association had already made targeted efforts to establish influence in the United States, opening its headquarters in Miami in 2023, and establishing a training center and a regional youth training academy. As one of Argentina’s most prestigious teams, Boca Youth Team’s participation in this Club World Cup should further promote this outreach effort – they will play the first two games of the group stage in the city of South Florida.
In the Champions League this season, Benfica played more directly than most teams and was happy to give possession to his opponent. They averaged 3.1 direct attacks per game, ranking seventh among the 36 first-stage participating teams, while their 41.1% front-court possession rate is 11th lowest. Despite this, Benfica can still average 14 shots per game, creating 2.2 “excellent” opportunities per game (11th place), and creating 21% (12th place).
This game mode helps conceal the anomaly of its decisive lack of quality in the offensive third zone; for a club that regularly trains promising offensive stars and attracts some impressive players to join Lisbon, its 68.6% pass success rate in the offensive third zone ranked 29th in only 36 participating teams, with poor performance.
So, while Benfica has no problem with sending the ball into the frontcourt area, players often seem unsure how to take these opportunities. After Gonzalo Ramos left the team in the summer of 2023, Benfica is still struggling to find his replacement, and last summer the team lost two other front lines to threaten Nerez and Marcos Leonardo, as well as vibrant midfielder Joao Neves.
Although Pavlidis signed in the summer window is a reliable scorer, leading the team with 29 goals in 53 games in various competitions, his “spare tires” Akturkogru and Orkun Kokku’s performance is really not stable.
So, while Benfica is looking forward to the 2022 World Cup champion Di Maria who can leave a highlight gift before returning to China to join Rosario Central to finish her career, their unstable state may allow Boca youth who have been in a sluggish state to seize the opportunity and create a big and small upset.
In the best condition, the Boca Youth seeks a quick counterattack. Chile international Carlos Palacios is the team’s current organizational core, with an experienced forward partner CavaNi and Milton Jimenez are planning behind him. When the team really started to work, the Boca Youth was decisive in breaking through the defense, as Defenders learned in March:
The Boca Youth converted a pass from the central defender back to the goalkeeper in just 12 seconds into a sports goal, and the time allocation of each stage of the offensive advancement is the real skill. Lautaro Dilolo stayed with the ball for 5 seconds, attracting the attention of defenders’ athletics, suggesting that it would be a steadily advance to the frontcourt. Then, he noticed that a defensive player on the left side of the opponent lost his position and then launched an attack: once passed forward to his teammate on the wing, then a kick was sent into the gap for Palacios to assist, and then a cross pass found Cavani’s running route towards the back post.
This style of play can help Boca youth break through Benfica’s defense, especially when Benfica invested a lot of troops in the previous offensive sequence.
However, the Boca Youth struggled in the opening stage of 2025 – as the backcourt could be suppressed by agile opponents. While experienced midfielder Ander Herrera can help the team push the goal from the midfield, and the defense led by Marcos Rojo and Christian Lema can also force offensive players to concede goals, they lack the necessary mobility. The 21-year-old Dilolo provides youthful vitality as a replacement for Lema, but is even more awkward in defense.
So the showdown between Boca Youth and Benfica may be a confrontation between a team with unquestionable offensive aura and a team with unquestionable offensive aura and a popular team that may be helpless in the offensive third zone…
And this game may also set the tone for each of the next games on the second and third game days of Group C.
The super giants in Group C
The most eye-catching giants in Group C are naturally Bayern, who have 34 Bundesliga championships, 6 Champions League championships and 2 Club World Cup championships. But there is so much discussion about them, so today we turn our attention to the southern hemisphere.
In Argentina, no team has won more honors than Boca Youth, and its trophy library includes 35 AFC Champions and 17 domestic Cup Champions. Although it has won the South American Liberators Cup six times, the club is experiencing a long championship drought in this event, and the last time it won the Intercontinental honor was in 2007.
At the same time, Boca Youth is also world-renowned for her expertise in cultivating top young players. Boca’s pre-youth players list is absolutely star-studded, including Maradona, Tevez, Gago, Medel, Riquelme, Ugo Ibara and Severino Barrera).
The competition with Buenos Aires neighbor River Plate is also the top confrontation in club football, alongside Spain’s “national derby”. Although River Plate may be considered a better performing club since the turn of the century, the Boca youth still maintained a slight advantage, winning 91 matches, while River Plate won 89 games and 85 draws also fully illustrate the balance between the two teams’ clash.
Of course, few fan groups hate each other more than they do.
For fans who wish to see a “super derby” in the United States during the Club World Cup, the draw result – River Plate was divided into Group E – means that the two teams will not be able to meet in the knockout round until the semi-final or final.
Player expected to emerge: Antonio Silva
Antonio Silva’s breakthrough was earlier than Benfica expected, and the team’s injury surge forced the then-teenage defender to enter the team’s starting lineup in the spring of 2023. This severe test injected strong resilience into the young central defender, who shook his finger to Italian veteran Bonucci in a Champions League match and won a contract renewal until 2027.
Silva, 21, is still in a young stage in this position where he needs to integrate all abilities. He has been in the transfer for a long time The rumored recent suitors include Real Madrid and Juventus, but Silva remains a core member of Benfica and has gained a foothold in the Portuguese national team. However, Hoyson’s rapid rise over the past year has reduced Silva’s position as the hottest young defensive star in football – and this event may be a great stage to show his extraordinary strength.
Silva mainly serves as Benfica’s off-ball center back, while Otamendi serves as the core of the ball. With his outstanding mobility, Silva’s role is to mark the opponent’s more flexible forwards and provides a good forward pass option through passing and dribbling.
As one of the real giants in Portugal, Benfica is usually able to control the rhythm of domestic games in his own hands. Otamendi and Silva are usually not overworked on the defensive end, so they can control the game from the backcourt. The difference is that the 37-year-old Otamendi has proven that he can switch to that tougher character style; while at Silva’s current development stage, his defensive ability can be said to be more powerful than 2023Those eye-catching performances in the year have declined.
In the Champions League this season, Benfica successfully advanced to the league stage and passed the first round of play-offs, but was eliminated by Barcelona in the round of 16. In nine appearances, Silva won 61.3% of the aerial confrontation—slightly above the average of qualified centre-backs in the event (60.3%)—but its “real” tackle success rate was only 38.5%. Most of his time is not devoted to tackles and interceptions, but to compete for two penalty kicks and clearances.
For a player who is so proactive in possession, it would be shocking to see his defensive stats in the European game so dull. He has two years left on his contract and Hoyson has completed a transfer from Bournemouth to Real Madrid, with everyone’s eyes set to focus on Silva to see how he handles another big event.
If Kane and Cavani can successfully limit him, it will undoubtedly greatly enhance his chances of joining a larger team.
Stories worth paying attention to
After winning the third place in the Club World Cup 11 years ago, many people want to know what kind of combat effectiveness Auckland City can show in this event.
Before the start of this Club World Cup, perhaps few teams will prepare to change their lineup like Auckland City. After qualifying in early December last year, it was reported that Auckland City hopes to temporarily loan players from its city rival Auckland FC. However, as of the time of writing, no loan players have joined.
Of course, no matter what the outcome, this is a wise idea for Auckland City. After all, Auckland City is the only non-professional team in this Club World Cup. But the identity of non-professional teams does not hinder their previous identity as regulars at Club World Cup. Their record of 12 appearances in the Club World Cup is also the reward they deserve to win the Oceania Champions League 11 times in the past 14 years.
In any case, they may face severe challenges in the face of such a strong grouping.
Things you may not know…
If Benfica is enthusiastically sought after by American fans after setting foot on the land of America, please don’t be surprised.
On February 28, 1904, 24 people gathered together to establish the Lisbon Sports Club, and four years later they acquired the Group Sport Benfica and followed the Benfica name. At that Creation Conference, these Creation Team bosses proposed some key team logo elements, which also accompanied the team for more than a century – they established red and white as the team’s jersey color, and decided to adopt a Latin motto – “E pluribus unum” (“Union in One”).
It was coincidentally the Latin motto that America had used on its national emblem as early as 1782, and it can still be seen on the presidential spokesperson, coins and the state flag of New York State.
(Armour)
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