If that is not enough, Auckland City FC were also paired with Portugal’s Benfica – another European heavyweight – and Boca Juniors from Argentina – one of the biggest and most well-resourced teams in South America.
It was a grand slam. They were always going to be massively overmatched however the cards fell but this is one of the hardest possible groups, whereas having one less European team and perhaps an Asian, North American or African opponent would have been slightly less intimidating.
Auckland City FC chairman Ivan Vuksich had mixed emotions, admitting some trepidation about what might unfold.
“Look – it’s a great draw,” Vuksich told the Herald. “I’m really excited, the boys are really excited. But we all have a little bit of trepidation, a little bit frightened about what could happen.
“My biggest fear is getting a hiding and that is possible. We are playing for Oceania and if we perform poorly, Oceania might be in danger of losing [direct entry] in the future, which would be a terrible thing to hang on our heads.”
Vuksich agreed that the scale of the task was hard to fathom – “Our boys are amateurs, training four evenings a week and working during the day while these teams have players on over $100,000 a week” – but took heart from previous exploits on the global stage, including third place at the 2014 edition of the old Club World Cup.
Midfielder Ryan de Vries, a survivor from that tournament in Morocco, was beaming from ear to ear soon after the draw was confirmed. The former All White works as a warehouse manager for Motomuck, a company that makes cleaning products for offroad vehicles, trucks, tractors, heavy machinery and race vehicles but next June he will taste life as a professional, against bona fide superstars.
“That’s unreal, three massive teams,” he smiled. “It is going to be incredible. Guys that have played Champions League, that have played in the [Premier League], played massive games for their country.”
De Vries said the team wouldn’t be intimidated but agreed that the step up – from their usual domestic or regional fare – was almost immeasurable.
“When you go to competitions like this, just the basics, they do the basics so well,” said De Vries. “Sometimes you only have a split second to make a decision … that’s why they are where they are and they earn the money that they earn because everything is just so quick. It is a massive step up but it’s not something that we are new to. We have been there and done that; it’s just adapting and how quickly we can adapt, in probably the first few minutes.”
Participating is a huge undertaking. The club has already employed three more staff – and will likely hire a fourth – to deal with tournament-related work, given Fifa’s huge requirements on all competing teams for the event, spread across 11 cities from New York to Los Angeles, Seattle to Orlando.
“We have work streams coming at us, from everywhere, it is just unbelievable,” said Vuksich.
As an example, Vuksich says there are numerous and frequent evening workshops over Zoom, along with one in the United States next March, which six club staff will be required to attend. There are warm-up games to be arranged – “America is very expensive for those kind of things – and all of those costs are on the club”.
Each competing club needs to have their entire playing strip (home, away and third, for every squad number) sent to Fifa headquarters in Zurich by early February. That’s straightforward for professional outfits, less so for Auckland City, who are still seeking potential uniform sponsors. There’s also merchandising, media demand and security requirements – “there’s a huge demand on security in America – we have had to engage a specialist who is used to working with local enforcement agencies there”.
That’s aside from all the other practicalities, related to competing in Fifa’s biggest ever club-based event.
“If we hadn’t been to some previous mini Club World Cups, I’d hate to think how we would begin to cope,” said Vuksich.
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist since 2005, winning several national awards and covering Olympics, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns.
