To mark the 20th FIFA Club World Cup\u2122, FIFA is counting down to its kick-off by showcasing 20 of the greatest moments in the tournament\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia 2023 is just 1 day away.
\n\u201cIf you lose this game you\u2019ll still be the best team in the world. But if you win, you will become immortals.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was Pep Guardiola\u2019s message to his all-conquering Barcelona players as they prepared to take to the field for the FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2009\u2122 final. Lionel Messi and Co stood within touching distance of a historic sextuple \u2013 a clean sweep of trophies in that calendar year \u2013 and no-one gave Estudiantes a prayer of stopping them.<\/p>\n
No-one except Alejandro Sabella\u2019s impressive side themselves, that is. The La Plata outfit gave Bar\u00e7a 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cEdudiantes played really well, above all in defence, and we struggled to find the breakthrough,\u201d recalled Barcelona attacker Pedro. \u201cIt was really hard to turn it around.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That set the stage for Messi \u2013 who else? \u2013 to become Barcelona\u2019s match-winner in extra time with a deft chested finish from Dani Alves\u2019 inviting right-foot cross.<\/p>\n
But although he later admitted that this cemented the Club World Cup\u2019s place as \u201cone of my favourite competitions\u201d, the little Argentinian was typically modest in response to suggestions that it had established him \u2013 at 22 \u2013 as the game\u2019s greatest.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, please, I am not king of the world now, nor the number one \u2013 I don\u2019t believe in those things,\u201d Messi insisted in the final\u2019s aftermath. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like the best. The best is Bar\u00e7a.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others, of course, were more than happy to make such claims on his behalf. As Barcelona president Joan Laporta later reflected: \u201cIt’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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To mark the 20th FIFA Club World Cup\u2122, FIFA is counting down to its kick-off by showcasing 20 of the greatest moments in the tournament\u2019s history. Saudi Arabia 2023 is just 1 day away. \u201cIf you lose this game you\u2019ll still be the best team in the world. But if you win, you will become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":916090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-916089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=916089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/916090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=916089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=916089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=916089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}