To mark the 20th FIFA Club World Cup™, FIFA is counting down to its kick-off by showcasing 20 of the greatest moments in the tournament’s history.

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“If you lose this game you’ll still be the best team in the world. But if you win, you will become immortals.”

This was Pep Guardiola’s message to his all-conquering Barcelona players as they prepared to take to the field for the FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2009™ final. Lionel Messi and Co stood within touching distance of a historic sextuple – a clean sweep of trophies in that calendar year – and no-one gave Estudiantes a prayer of stopping them.

No-one except Alejandro Sabella’s impressive side themselves, that is. The La Plata outfit gave Barça a torrid time and, having taken the lead with an unstoppable Mauro Boselli header on 37 minutes, were still leading as the decider entered its dying stages.

“Edudiantes played really well, above all in defence, and we struggled to find the breakthrough,” recalled Barcelona attacker Pedro. “It was really hard to turn it around.”

Turn it around they did though, with Pedro himself looping home at 88th-minute header and, in the process, becoming the first player to score in six different club competitions in a single season.

That set the stage for Messi – who else? – to become Barcelona’s match-winner in extra time with a deft chested finish from Dani Alves’ inviting right-foot cross.

But although he later admitted that this cemented the Club World Cup’s place as “one of my favourite competitions”, the little Argentinian was typically modest in response to suggestions that it had established him – at 22 – as the game’s greatest.

“No, please, I am not king of the world now, nor the number one – I don’t believe in those things,” Messi insisted in the final’s aftermath. “I don’t feel like the best. The best is Barça.”

Others, of course, were more than happy to make such claims on his behalf. As Barcelona president Joan Laporta later reflected: “It’s really illustrative that the best player in the history of the game gave us the trophy we didn’t have to complete the sextet. He scored the goal with his chest. And with the badge.”