MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — After more than a year of uncertainty and criticism, the Club World Cup finally kicked off Saturday night, and soccer may never be the same.
At least that’s what FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been telling anyone who would listen.
“This tournament will be the start of something historic that will change our sport for the better,” he said earlier this week as part of an exhausting schedule of public engagements to drum up interest in the monthlong 32-team event staged across 11 cities in the United States.
Soccer’s newest tournament — or at least the newest version of a tournament that has never been this big — is what the sport has been waiting for, Infantino said, and on Saturday, despite considerable pushback and obstacles, his personal passion project became reality.
The 55-year-old Swiss lawyer, who holds one of the most powerful positions in the world as the head of international soccer’s governing body, was on hand at a largely full Hard Rock Stadium to watch Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami CF play Al Ahly of the Egyptian Premier League in the opening game of his super-sized Club World Cup.