FIFA Intercontinental Cup 2024: Real Madrid vs Pachuca Report

December 18, 2024
Ahmed

The FIFA Intercontinental Cup, which replaced the old edition of the Club World Cup ended with Real Madrid lifting the trophy for the ninth time. It was a fairly comfortable 3-0 victory over Mexican side Pachuca, with Kylian Mbappe, Rodrygo, and Vinicius Junior all getting on the scoresheet.

FIFA Intercontinental Cup 2024 preview

Form-wise, Real Madrid hadn’t quite lived up to its usual lofty standards heading into the final. Despite boasting a star-studded squad, injuries and inconsistent performances have plagued them, leaving the Spanish club in third place in La Liga, behind Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.

Real Madrid has also struggled in Europe, currently sitting 20th in the UEFA Champions League. As a result, Madrid fans were wary of what had the potential to be a rather tricky fixture in Lusail, Qatar.

Pachuca, on the other hand, are not doing so well in Liga MX. They are third to last (16th) in the standings, with just three wins coming from 17 games. In fact, coming into their fixture against Real Madrid, they had lost their last two games domestically — to Juarez and Club America.

But how did Pachuca, a team flirting with the bottom places in the standings find itself playing the final of the Intercontinental cup in the first place?

Road to Intercontinental Cup Final

FIFA introduced a new format for the Club World Cup but didn’t want to discard the version that had been used since 2000. As a result, they renamed the tournament and made slight adjustments to its structure.

Unlike previous seasons, there was no host country. Instead, six teams participated in the Intercontinental Cup, each being the winner of their respective continental top competition. The teams with the lowest coefficients started from round one.

The first match was the African-Asian-Pacific Cup Playoff, held between Auckland City FC (New Zealand) and Al Ain (UAE). The Emirati side won 6-2, setting up a date for the African-Asian-Pacific Cup Final against Al Ahly of Egypt.

Al Ain then fell to Al Ahly 3-0, and the CAF Champions faced Pachuca in another competition called the ‘Challenger Cup’ on December 14th. Pachuca won the match on penalties. To reach the Challenger Cup, Pachuca had to defeat Botafogo, the Copa Libertadores champions from earlier this year.

The winner of the Challenger Cup was always set to face Real Madrid, as UEFA (Europe’s confederation) holds the highest coefficient. This setup led to the final between Pachuca and Real Madrid, which took place on Wednesday at 10:30 PM IST.

Real Madrid vs Pachuca result and report

From the get-go, Real Madrid looked comfortable. None of their players appeared shaky, which had been the case in several games this season. Although Pachuca had a few shots towards Thibaut Courtois’ goal, nothing really troubled the Belgian.

Mbappé opened the scoring in the 37th minute, which turned out to be the only shot on target for the Spanish side in the first half. Pachuca entered the tunnel at halftime, likely looking to regroup and pose a greater offensive threat.

But just eight minutes into the second half, Rodrygo scored a stunning goal to make it 2-0, after which the result seemed all but settled. Madrid kept pushing and dominated most of the second half, ultimately resulting in Lucas Vázquez earning a penalty, which Vinicius converted to make it 3-0.

Ángel Mena of Pachuca appeared to have brought one back for the Liga MX side in the dying moments of the game, but it turned out to be offside. The final whistle blew just minutes later, sealing a confidence-boosting victory for the record European champions.

FIFA Intercontinental Cup Awards

As is the case with every FIFA tournament, individual brilliance is rewarded with awards, notably the Adidas Golden Ball.

Although Real Madrid played just one game, two of its players claimed the top two spots on the podium. Vinicius won the Golden Ball, while Fede Valverde took home the Silver Ball.