Real Madrid is playing in an event next week with “World Cup” in its title. Sounds like a big deal, right? Well, sort of.
The Club World Cup, which gets underway on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, is nominally a huge event: the world championship for soccer clubs from different continents. Just about every professional soccer team in the world is eligible, from Equatorial Guinea to Nepal.
Every year, the champion of each continent, plus a team from the host country, gathers for the single-elimination event. The winner is, in a manner of speaking, the world champion.
But the makeup of the tournament guarantees that besides the Champions League winner Real Madrid, the list of entries is often a trifle obscure.