In terms of underdog ventures by New Zealand sporting teams, Auckland City’s quest at the 2023 Fifa Club World Cup is one of the biggest ever.
On the one side, you have a team featuring a Ballon’ D’or winner, who has lifted the UEFA Champions League five times and earns more than $150 million a season. You have an English Premier League champion with Liverpool and another with both Leicester City and Chelsea. You have a player who has won the Fifa World Cup and played in a European championship final, along with an Italian international with long stints at Lazio and Real Betis.
On the other side you have a teacher, a Coca-Cola sales rep, a real estate agent, a painter, a delivery driver, a car detailer and a project manager. That’s not to belittle the juggling required by Auckland City’s amateur squad but just to put in context what they will be up against when they face Saudi Arabian champions Al-Ittihad in the opening playoff game on Wednesday (7am NZT).
The Sandringham-based club has faced some daunting opposition on the world stage over the years but nothing quite like this. The 11-time Oceania champions are walking into a hurricane, as this appearance at the Club World Cup coincides with the Saudi stampede into football, which has seen its top clubs spend astronomical sums (even by football standards) to lure top talent from European teams.
Al-Ittihad have strong pedigree – they were Asian champions in 2004 and 2005 – but their standing has reached a new stratosphere since June. That’s when they were taken over, along with three other leading Saudi clubs, by the Government’s Public Investment Fund, a $1.1 trillion trough of oil money, which has also been used to purchase Newcastle United and create the rebel LIV golf tour.