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The 2025 football season is drawing to a close, but anyone thinking that they will have to turn to sports like tennis following the culmination of the upcoming Champions League final between Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain is in for a welcome surprise. This summer, the beautiful game will be front and centre longer than usual thanks to the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. The competition has been completely transformed this summer, with 32 teams heading to the United States in a bid to be crowned World Champions, rather than just the seven continental champions like in years gone by.
Plenty of big names will be heading Stateside this summer, as will several news-worthy rivals. The popular Bodog News site recently listed the River Plate vs. Boca Juniors rivalry as the third biggest on the planet, and both Buenos Aires giants will be heading north from Argentina in a bid to outperform the other. However, neither of them is expected to be crowned champions, with heavyweights Real Madrid and Manchester City currently considered the +450 favourites for the crown.
Elsewhere, Lionel Messi will be leading Inter Miami into battle and he will do so with a raucous backing from a partisan home crowd. The Argentinian GOAT has been dazzling since moving to South Beach two years ago, and he will be aiming to roll back the years by catapulting the East Coast side to a deep tournament run, despite being massive underdogs.
But what of the African continent? Four teams will be representing CAF on the grandest stage this summer, but who are they, and what are their hopes at the Club World Cup? Let's find out.
Al Ahly
Egyptian side Al Ahly is without question the dominant force in African football at present. They have won the CAF Champions League in four of the last five seasons, and they head to the States hoping to cause quite the stir. They will play in the opening game of the tournament against Messi's Inter Miami at Hard Rock Stadium on June 14th, and they will be aiming to upset the home favourites and stake their claim to progress to the knockout round.
Group A is a wide-open one. FC Porto are the only European representative in the quartet, and they are arguably one of the weakest teams that UEFA will be sending. Brazilian giants Palmeiras round out the group, and they will prove to be stern opposition.
Al Ahly are considered a +200 outsider to qualify from their group, the longest odds of any of its four participants. However, if they can upset Miami on the opening day, then they will be in with a great chance of progressing, despite what the odds may say.
Wydad AC
Moroccan outfit Wydad AC also have plenty of pedigree in the CAF Champions League. They managed to defeat Al Ahly in the 2022 final to claim the title, halting their dominance at least for a brief period. They have been drawn into a tough group alongside not one but two European heavyweights.
The first of them is Premier League giants Manchester City, and it is against them the Moroccans will begin their campaign in Philadelphia on June 18th. The second is Juventus, and they will be meeting the Italians in their second group game, also in Philly. The Club of the Nation could well be eliminated after those two games - should they lose in both - and their lengthy odds of +1100 to qualify from the group look more than justified.
Espérance de Tunis
Tunisian outfit Espérance de Tunis won back-to-back CAF Champions League finals in 2018 and 2019, defeating Al Ahly and Wydad respectively, although the latter of those triumphs came in controversial circumstances. They reached the final once again last term but lost to the aforementioned Egyptians, and this year, they found themselves eliminated relatively early in the tournament.
Much like Wydad, the Tunisian outfit also faces tough tests at the Club World Cup. They have been drawn into Group D alongside Brazilian outfit Flamengo and English Premier League giants Chelsea. They will face those two in their opening and closing group stage games, with both contests being held in Philadelphia. The final team in the group is yet to be decided, with American side Los Angeles FC and Mexican outfit Club America set to square off in a playoff in the coming weeks.
Mamelodi Sundowns
The continent's final team comes in the form of South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns. The Bafana ba Style have ruled over football in their country with an iron fist in recent years, winning the Premiership title in each of the last eight seasons. They also look set to take their dominance onto the continental stage as they will feature in the CAF Champions League final this season for the first time in nine years.
The Sundowns find themselves in a position similar to that of Al Ahly, rather than Wydad and Espérance, in that they have outside hopes of reaching the knockout round. Borussia Dortmund are the European representatives, and they are hardly the fearsome force of old. In fact, the German outfit barely scraped a top-four finish in the Bundesliga this season, and could be ripe for the upsetting.
Brazilian side Fluminense and South Korea's Ulsan HD round out the group, and the South African champions will have genuine ambitions of springing a couple of shocks before qualifying for the knockout round.
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