The world is watching...

Football has been extended into summer thanks to Fifa’s new money-spinning competition. Miguel Delaney puts aside his cynicism to watch history unfold at the Club World Cup

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It was on a call with Fifa and Club World Cup rivals that Manchester City's Ferran Soriano was willing to reveal some of the team's inner workings.

As long ago as August, City's chief executive revealed how Pep Guardiola's staff had been working on their physical programme to ensure the squad would be ready for the tournament in the United States. Such changes might have been a factor in City’s underwhelming season, but the Club World Cup might change perceptions. An entire year may have been building to this.

For Florentino Perez, it’s a lifetime’s work. The Real Madrid president never got his Super League, but this is viewed as something similar, at least in terms of legacy, and it may be an elegant historical echo.

Under one of Perez’s 17 predecessors, Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid were the drivers of the European Cup back in 1955 – to the point that they claim to have created it and were the first club to win it. Now, though, Perez wants to do the same thing with the Club World Cup.

He has developed a political alliance with Gianni Infantino’s Fifa, and Madrid have backed the competition. So, the key message for Xabi Alonso’s team as they depart for the USA has been that it would be fitting, with Madrid’s great history, to be the first to win this. It would ensure they have been the first true European champions and the first true world champions.

A club like Madrid having such aspirations is almost all the endorsement that Infantino needs. Because, right now, it’s hardly an exaggeration to say this new Club World Cup has caused huge debate.