Sunday, December 20, 2015

Today, Catalonia-based football club FC Barcelona defeated Argentine club River Plate FC 3–0 at Nissan Stadium in Yokohama in the FIFA Club World Cup final hosted in Japan.

FIFA Club World Cup is a tournament in which football clubs winning in the respective continental confederation championships participate. Barcelona won the UEFA Champions League, and River Plate won the 2015 Copa Libertadores. Barcelona’s Neymar, recovered from groin injury, was included in the squad.

Barça had a greater ball possession. The match saw six yellow cards, two for River Plate players. More than 30 fouls were committed in the match. Lionel Messi scored the first goal of the match after breaking the opponents’ defense in the 36^th minute, assisted by Neymar. A sliding tackle by Ivan Rakiti? in the 43^th minute got him a yellow card. Before him, three other players were already booked by the match official. The first half ended in 1–0 for the Europeans.

In the opening minutes of the second half, Uruguayan Luis Suárez scored the second goal of the match, assisted by Sergio Busquets in the 49^th minute. In the 68^th minute, he scored the third of the night by a header, assisted by Neymar.

Interestingly, River Plate faced six South Americans in the match.

This was Barcelona’s fifth trophy of the season, and third FIFA Club World Cup title.