2005 FIFA Club World Championship

Infobox International Football Competition
tourney_name =
year = 2005
other_titles = FIFA Club World Championship Toyota Cup Japan 2005


size = 150px
caption = FIFA Club World Championship 2005 official logo
country = Japan
dates = 11 December – 18 December
num_teams = 6
confederations = 6
venues = 3
cities = 3
champion_other = flagicon|BRA São Paulo FC
count = 1
second_other = flagicon|ENG Liverpool
third_other = flagicon|CRC Deportivo Saprissa
fourth_other = flagicon|KSA Al Ittihad
matches = 7
goals = 19
attendance = 261456
top_scorer = flagicon|BRA Amoroso (2 goals)
flagicon|KSA Mohammed Noor (2 goals)
flagicon|ENG Peter Crouch (2 goals)
flagicon|CRC Alvaro Saborio (2 goals)The 2005 FIFA Club World Championship was a football tournament held in Japan between 11 December and 18 December 2005 and won by Brazilian club São Paulo FC. It is FIFA's biggest club football tournament, though is not as highly regarded by most sides as regional tournaments such as the Copa Libertadores and UEFA Champions League.

Background

The 2005 tournament was created as a merger between the Intercontinental Cup and the earlier FIFA Club World Championships. The previous of these had been running as an annual tournament between the champions of Europe and South America since 1960; the latter had undergone just one tournament, the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship. The 2001 tournament had been cancelled when FIFA's marketing partner ISL went bankrupt.

As a result of this merger, the tournament was conceived as being smaller than the original Club World Championship, which had lasted two weeks, yet building on the one game format of the Intercontinental Cup. Six clubs were invited to take part in the tournament, one representing each regional football confederation.

Format

The competition was a knockout tournament so each team played two or three matches. The champions of the four "weaker" confederations played in the quarter-finals; the losers played in a fifth place play-off. The winners were then joined by the European and South American champions in the semi-finals; the losers played in a third place play-off.

The matches were held in Tokyo's National (Olympic) Stadium, Toyota Stadium in Toyota, Aichi near Nagoya and the International Stadium in Yokohama, where the final was played. For marketing purposes it was known as the "FIFA Club World Championship Toyota Cup".

Qualifying teams

These were decided during 2005:

Tournament round-up

Final standings

Views on the tournament

The tournament was quite well received, although some commentators have stated that, excluding São Paulo and Liverpool, the quality of football was quite poor leading to a view that it might have been better retaining the two continent format of the European/South American Cup ^{[http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SPORT/football/12/18/soccer.japan/]} .

ee also

*FIFA Club World Championship

External links

* [http://www.fifa.com/tournaments/archive/tournament=107/edition=4735/index.html FIFA CWC Tournament Table]