Football|Inter Miami won the MLS regular season, but the playoffs are yet to come.
Inter Miami is the host country representing the United States in the Club World Cup tournament, which will be played in an expanded format of 32 teams in June-July 2025.
The international football association Fifa granted a place to Inter Miami early on Sunday Finnish time, when Lionel Messin the hat trick had secured the team’s all-time points record in the regular season of the North American MLS league.
The decision was not self-evident in advance, because after the regular season, the playoffs will be played, culminating in the final match on December 7. The playoff championship trophy, the MLS Cup, is generally a more prestigious award than the Supporters’ Shield, awarded to the winner of the regular season.
The choice can be interpreted more cynically: the place was allocated with the advertising money in mind for the very competition that the star sibling led by Messi first secured for himself.
“You have shown that you are the best team in the United States in the long run,” the president of Fifa Gianni Infantino justified ignoring the playoffs, according to news agency Reuters.
Inter Miami is also allowed to play in the opening match of the World Cup tournament in home Florida, but not in its own 21,550-seat stadium, but in the stadium of the American football NFL team Miami Dolphins, which can accommodate 65,000 spectators.
Places The WC tournament has already been allocated based on previous seasons.
From the United States, Seattle Sounders is also participating as the winner of the North American Champions League 2022. North America is also represented by the Mexican teams Monterrey (North American Champions League 2021), León (North American Champions League 2023) and Pachuca (North American Champions Cup 2024).
So, there have been many different routes to get to next summer’s World Cup from North America over the past few years, but the culmination of the current MLS season is not one of them.
Europe has 12 places in the World Cup tournament for club teams (divided based on past years’ Champions League wins and the four-year UEFA ranking), South America has six, Asia has four, Africa has four and Oceania has one.