2005

FIFA Club World Cup 2005

2005 FIFA Club World Cup Final

Liverpool v Sao Paulo

(Tournament also included Sydney FC, Al Ahly, Deportivo Saprissa, Al Ittihad)

For 2005, FIFA expanded the Toyota Cup to include the champions from Continents other than Europe and South America, and re-named it the FIFA Club World Cup. The tournament held in Japan from 11 to 18 December 2005 featured Sao Paulo (Brazil), Liverpool (England), Deportivo Saprissa (Costa Rica), Sydney FC (Australia), Al Ahly (Egypt) and Al Ittihad (Saudi Arabia). Sao Paulo and Liverpool entered the tournament at the semi-final stage and defeated Al Ittihad and Deportivo Saprissa respectively to reach the Final. In the Final in front of over 66,000 supporters on 18 December 2005, Sao Paulo defeated Liverpool 1-0 with a goal from Mineiro , although Liverpool were desperately unlucky to have two goals subsequently disallowed for offside.

I was fortunate enough to travel to Japan in 2005 and as well as having a fantastic time there saw three games with my Japanese friend Tatsuya – Al Ittihad v Al Ahly in the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, and Liverpool v Deportivo Saprissa and Liverpool v Sao Paulo both in the International Stadium in Yokohama.

The official programme for the tournament has 132 x colour A4 pages and came with a free bag (shown below). The programme is in Japanese and English and begins with introductions from FIFA and TOYOTA. The programme continues with the match schedules and venues. The programme then gives full details and photos of all of the competing teams and their countries, along with further information on their star players. The programme includes details and photos from previous Toyota Cup Finals and finishes with details how each club won their respective continental competitions to qualify for the 2005 FIFA Club World Cup 2005 tournament.

One of my favourite items of memorabilia for this tournament is the rare large poster (No.2 below), which the Japanese FA kindly took down from their wall and gave to me when I visited the Japanese Football Museum in Tokyo.