TIN MINERS AND DEFLATED BALLS

The World Cup is on....yep, the World Club Championship is underway in and sponsored by the UAE. Beginning on the 6th it concludes on the 16th December. 7 teams play in 2 venues.

Clubs involved represent most Continents (no Antarctica)!!!! so no British clubs involved as Real Madrid hold UEFA hopes having beaten Juventus in last season's Champions League.

From Africa is Wydad Athletic Club of Casablanca, Morocco who defeated rivals Egyptian, Al Alihy 2-1 in their continental cup. John Toshack managed Wydad between June 2014-Sept 2016.

From Asia are the AFC Champions, Urawa Red Diamonds from the Japanese J League who beat Al Hilal from Saudi Arabia 2-1.

The CONCACAF (Central and North America FA) representatives are Pachuca from Mexico. This club, founded in the early 20th Century by British miners was successfully run from 1917 by Alfred Crowle and others, a tin miner from St Blazey, Cornwall. His son then became the technical director to the Mexican national team and Pachuca was the first team to develop in the country, winning the newly formed league between 1917-20 and in 1935 he ran the national team.

Oceania Champs are Auckland from NZ victors over Wellington, unsurprisingly no body from the islands.

Finally in South America the Copa Libertadores (CONMEBOL) winners are Gremio 3-1 winners over Argentinians Lanus.

The competition started on 6th December with Al Jazira edging out Auckland 1-0. On the 9th Second Round Al Jazira kept going beating Urawa 1-0 and CF Pachuca also won 1-0 over Wydad aet.

On the 12th, 5th Place went to Urawa with a 3-2 victory over Wydad.
Semi-Finals included Gremio FBPA of Porto Alegre, Brazil beating Pachuca 1-0 aet. with the goal scored by Everton!

Gremio was founded by English and German migrants in 1903 and their main rivals are Internacionale. Candido Dias was watching an exhibition match in Porto Alegre when the ball burst! Fortunately he had a ball, lent it to the players and then chatted to locals about starting their own club.
The rivalry between the Gremio and Inter is known as Gre-nal, for obvious reasons. Scolari was their coach in 1995.

On the 13th (today) Al Jazira host Real Madrid in a semi-final.

3rd place match is on the 16th between as yet unknown against Pachuca @ 18.00 and this is followed by the Final at the Zayed Sports' Stadium Abu Dhabi 21.30 with Gremio already there.