Auckland City And The Club World Cup

Fans of soccer are learning about this crest in the Club World Cup

It all looks the same, to a certain degree...

You travel from Point A to Point B. Practice. Return to base camp. Hang out. Maybe, you sample what’s around you within walking distance. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Rehab. And, then you head to your match day.

But, for one team in the Club World Cup, it’s a little different... Okay, a LOT different...

Auckland City FC has won the New Zealand Football Championship regular season twelve times- eight times, the champ. They have represented the Oceania Football Confederation in the OFC Champions League, which they won most recently in 2024 for the 12th time. With that, they get the invite for the CWC. Their camp is the Baylor School outside of Chattanooga and they get put in a group with Bayern Munich, Benfica, and Boca Juniors for their accomplishments.

And for this group of non-professional footballers that have jobs in sales, soda, veterinarian supply, and real estate (for starters), it’s a chance to represent the 99.9-percent of the people that play for the love of the game.

After two losses to Bayern and Benfica by a 16-0 margin in total, folks are using social media to be anti-social about their presence and place.

“Honestly, it was a bit tricky,” winger Haris Zeb tells me. When he’s not on the wing, he works in his fiancee’s uncle’s delivery company. This gives him the chance to stay in the game playing and coaching. “We did get quite a bit of stick on social media and things that, but, we earned our spot here. We've been dominating the Oceania football league for a long time so I think, full credit, we deserve to be here. But obviously, it's a bit tough, playing against players that are worth $50 to $100 million so we did the best we can.

“People on social media are gonna say what they’re gonna say. But it's been awesome to see some of social media get behind us.”

Zeb admits the Bayern match had a bit of a learning curve to it. Benfica, probably, had its lessons as well with the Boca Juniors match looking to close out their group stage work.

“It was tough, honestly, because I hadn't lost 10-nil since I was probably a kid so it was definitely difficult. Obviously, my family gave me a lot of support and reminded us that you are playing against some of the world's best and you guys do have full time jobs.

“I was a little bit disappointed. I just feel that I think we ourselves let us down with some of our own actions... like our own passes... our own touches... where I felt we could have done better. But at the end of the day, you know, there's a few things that happened in that game which you can't control. Because like we said ‘it’s the world's best, you know...”

“We're happy that we can get that kind of warmth from everyone that we’ve been getting,” striker Myer Bevan told me on campus. “We come from a different place to all these teams. But look, we're still here. We still deserve to be here. Hopefully we can show ourselves a bit.”

The Benfica match was part of that progress. A questionable penalty call gave Benfica the only score of the first 45 minutes- and, then, Mother Nature took over for two hours at the half.

Bevan admitted they were going to make it difficult for the opponent in Orlando. The last twenty minutes of practice in the rain Thursday was working on set piece defending and set piece set-up on offense. They did make it difficult and frustrating- keeper Nathan Garrow had seven first-half saves (10 total). The defense had 54 clearances and ten interceptions along the way, but Auckland City had to chase the match after the weather delay.

“We want to be more defensively compact,” Bevan previewed- and they were. “We're gonna try and express ourselves a bit more, be a bit better on the ball, and go forward a bit more and try and hurt these teams. Because, like I said before, we deserve to be here. And we’ve got two more chances to show that.”

Benfica scored five in the second half- one more of those from the spot. Pavlides, Sanches, Barreiro with two in three minutes, and the di Maria bookend.

“I think clearly we improved,” Auckland City head coach Paul Posa said after the match. “I think the guys are going to be pretty disappointed with the scoreline. I think we contributed a lot more today to a good match, perhaps, than we did against Bayern. Maybe it was just the way that Bayern play, but I think we contributed towards a pretty good match today.

“I know the score line blew out, but as I said, two of them were penalties. And I think we actually kind of grew in confidence for quite a while. Then, we started to actually think we can do something and we were trying. One of our aims at half time was to go and look for a goal. But I think the more we went looking for a goal and more and more confidence we grew, the more Benfica were able to sort of just hit us quickly and put some goals away.

“I'm pretty proud of the boys.”

It's a tournament experience for sure, but it's a different experience for Auckland City

Posa was asked about the last match in the group stage for them and how they were going to approach Boca Juniors. He was up front about not laying down and giving it their best shot. You never know when you get a chance like this and you never know when you’re going to get another chance like this...

Tuesday at 3pm, Auckland City is a –10000 underdog against Boca Juniors in Nashville. Both Group C matches are simultaneous on the last match day to determine who makes the knockouts. For those that have questions about qualification for the tournament, Auckland City reminds us about that 16-seed. They remind us about the underdog and they remind us about moments in the sun against the heavy favorite.

After Nashville, Auckland City returns to their lives and games 16 hours away from the eastern part of the United States. The Club World Cup will continue and we’ll know about what is left behind.

We’ll also, hopefully, keep moving the game forward with stories like theirs as we’re reminded about all the effort it takes to get to the stage in the first place...