1BSPORTS 1B Sports June 13 The Club World Cup is about to start, and all the players participating in the 32 teams were finalized. The Football Newspaper wrote that Zhou Tong, who currently plays for Auckland City, New Zealand, will embark on the Club World Cup again as the only Chinese player.
Zhou Tong, 35, has played in China for Dalian Albin, Dalian Ren, Tianjin TEDA, Wuhan Zall and Tianjin Jinmen Tiger after TEDA’s name change. On March 1, 2023, New Zealand team Auckland City officially announced that Zhou Tong joined the team. So far, he has played 67 times for Auckland City and contributed 4 goals and 7 assists, and won three consecutive championships in the Oceania Champions League with the team.
In this Club World Cup, Auckland City will be in Group C where Bayern, Benfica and Boca are located. At 0:00 on June 16, Beijing time, Auckland City will challenge Bayern, and then will face Benfica and Boca at 0:00 on the 21st and 3:00 on the 25th. In fact, Auckland City has already had 11 Club World Cup experience, with the best result being the third place in 2014, but the last 9 participations were eliminated in the first round. The expansion and reform of the Club World Cup this time also provides them with more opportunities to communicate and learn from European and American giants.
This is also Zhou Tong’s second time to compete in the Club World Cup with the team. At the end of 2023, he played for 22 minutes in the first round of the Club World Cup against Jeddah United, and made his debut in the Club World Cup. It is also the second time that there are Chinese players competing in the Club World Cup after 8 years. Unfortunately, due to the huge gap in strength, Oakland City lost 0-3 to the opponent and missed the opportunity to go a step further.
It is worth mentioning that Wu Xiaohai, who plays for Los Angeles FC, has also entered the roster of this Club World Cup. However, due to the failure to complete the naturalization work, the Chinese player will still participate in this Club World Cup as a Canadian player.