The FIFA Club World Cup, which is essentially just a Champions League that lacks intrigue, a catchy song, or debates about the champion being funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (for now), kicked off this week.
While normally my sports viewing mind compartmentalizes fixtures involving a European football pitch towards the three or four weeks Shahid Khan and Woody Johnson ship their miserable American football teams across the pond, this tournament got my attention.
This tournament, which the flawlessly upstanding corporation of FIFA hopes to use as a vehicle to market next year’s World Cup, features a team that lost by a touchdown, extra point, and field goal in its opener against Bayern Munich.
That team, Auckland FC, is not a professional soccer team.
The ‘Navy Blues’, as fans lovingly refer to the squad as, were the best team throughout the first half of the decade from the region FIFA deems the ‘Oceania Football Confederation’ (OFC). It was founded in 1966 by Jim Bayutti, Stanley Rous, and Sid Guppy after the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) deemed their pond wasn’t big enough for the smaller fish in the south pacific.
The AFC finally saw Australia from their house 40 years later, ultimately letting the sixth biggest country in the world join the AFC in a change they could all believe in.
That left New Zealand as the biggest nation left in the OFC, opening the door for its many cities to stop the scrums and begin kicking a round ball in hopes of finding international glory.
Not many cities have found success other than Auckland though. The Navy Blues have created quite possibly the greatest dynasty you’ve never heard of. Since the restart of the OFC Champions League following the exit of Australian teams in 2007, Auckland City FC has won 11 championships, including the last four.
Despite all the success, Auckland City has not won a professional, FIFA-sanctioned soccer match in over a decade. That game was the 2014 FIFA Club World Cup Third Place Match against Cruz Azul, which again inherently proved navy as the superior color over boring old blue.
The 16-time OFC Champions League Champions play their home games at the 5,000 person capacity Kiwitea Street multi-purpose stadium complex in Auckland. Patrons can seemingly book time to play a match of their own on the field through the Auckland City Parks and Recreation website.
Fans could also attempt to play a match at Allianz Arena, the 75,000 capacity home of Auckland’s first round opponent FC Bayern Munich, but the short moment of euphoria would likely be accompanied by a night in a German jail cell.
*I’d like it to be known I refrained from any German sausage jokes
As for the ‘Navy Blues’ play on the pitch, actual statistics from games in the New Zealand domestic, semi-professional league are fairly hard to come by but it’s fairly safe to say Auckland native Myer Bevan is the metaphorical grizzly bear in the arena.
The 28-year-old may not be one of the three things people will be talking about in the annals of history, but the center-forward, which in New Zealand is called the centre-forward, did score a team-leading 9 goals in 17 matches of league play this season.
Bevan is currently on loan from Canadian club Calvary FC for €150,000, which equates to about $172,000. FC Bayern Munich’s top goal scorer, English legend Harry Kane, is playing on a four year contract worth £100 Million, or about $134 Million USD.
Kane is making just over €20 Million more per year than every footballer on Auckland FC is making during the entirety of their contract (€4.58 million or approximately $5.93 Million USD).
In other words these guys are the underdogs of all underdogs. If you needed a sports story to root for this summer look no further than the FIFA Club World Cup and Auckland City FC.
The team hailing from New Zealand’s largest city, which is known as the’City of Sails’ because of its stunning harbor and sailing culture, may just sail it’s way out of the group stages in stunning fashion at the FIFA Club World Cup. Another pair of double-digit losses in the group stage is far more likely of course.
Either way, I’ll be watching the chaos. In the wise words of Jackie Moon, “everybody panic”.
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