2015 FIFA Club World Cup

2015 FIFA Club World Cup

Tournament details
Dates	10–20 December 2015
Teams	7 (from 6 confederations)
Venue(s)	2 (in 2 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Barcelona (3rd title)
Runner-up	River Plate
Third place	Sanfrecce Hiroshima
Fourth place	Guangzhou Evergrande
Tournament statistics
Matches played	8
Goals scored	21 (2.63 per match)
Attendance	272,312 (34,039 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Luis Suárez (5 goals)
Best player	Luis Suárez
Fair play award	Barcelona
← 2014 2016 →

The 2015 FIFA Club World Cup (officially known as the FIFA Club World Cup Japan 2015 presented by Alibaba E-Auto for sponsorship reasons) was the 12th edition of the FIFA Club World Cup, a FIFA-organised international club football tournament between the champion clubs from each of the six continental confederations, as well as the national league champion from the host country. The tournament was hosted by Japan between 10–20 December 2015.

Host bids

The application process for the 2015–2016 as well as the 2017–2018 editions, i.e. two hosts, each hosting two years, began in February 2014. Member associations interested in hosting had to submit a declaration of interest by 30 March 2014, and provide the complete set of bidding documents by 25 August 2014. The FIFA Executive Committee was to select the hosts at their meeting in Morocco in December 2014. However, no such decision regarding the 2015–2016 host was made until 2015.

The following countries expressed an interest in bidding to host the tournament:

• India (withdrew interest in November 2014)
• Japan

Japan was officially confirmed as the host of the 2015 and 2016 tournaments on 23 April 2015.

Proposed change to format

Under a proposed change to the competition, led by the Oceania Football Confederation, the new format would mean a removal of the knockout rounds for the quarter-finals and play-off round, replacing it with two round-robin groups of three teams, consisting of two teams from the host nation and the champions of AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, and OFC, with the group winners advancing to the semi-finals to play the champions of CONMEBOL and UEFA. This would allow for all teams to play at least two matches, avoiding the current situation where the loser of the play-off round would play only one match. A decision on this would be taken after the 2014 competition finished. However, according to the press release of the host country, the tournament will continue with the original seven-team format in 2015.

Qualified teams

Team	Confederation	Qualification	Qualified date	Participation
Enter in the semi-finals
River Plate	CONMEBOL	Winners of the 2015 Copa Libertadores	22 July 2015	1st
Barcelona	UEFA	Winners of the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League	6 June 2015	4th (Previous: 2006, 2009, 2011)
Enter in the quarter-finals
Guangzhou Evergrande	AFC	Winners of the 2015 AFC Champions League	21 November 2015	2nd (Previous: 2013)
TP Mazembe	CAF	Winners of the 2015 CAF Champions League	8 November 2015	3rd (Previous: 2009, 2010)
América	CONCACAF	Winners of the 2014–15 CONCACAF Champions League	29 April 2015	2nd (Previous: 2006)
Enter in the play-off for quarter-finals
Auckland City	OFC	Winners of the 2014–15 OFC Champions League	26 April 2015	7th (Previous: 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
Sanfrecce Hiroshima	AFC (Hosts)	Winners of the 2015 J1 League	5 December 2015	2nd (Previous: 2012)

¹ In bold: Previous tournament winners
² River Plate qualified as the CONMEBOL representatives on 22 July 2015 when UANL, who are from Mexico and not eligible to represent CONMEBOL in the FIFA Club World Cup, were confirmed as their opponents in the final.

Venues

On 22 May 2015, Nagai Stadium in Osaka and International Stadium Yokohama in Yokohama were named as the two venues that would be used in the tournament.

Osaka	Yokohama
Nagai Stadium	International Stadium Yokohama
Capacity: 47,000	Capacity: 72,327

Match officials

The appointed match officials were:

Confederation	Referee	Assistant referees
AFC	Alireza Faghani	Reza Sokhandan Mohammadreza Mansouri
CAF	Sidi Alioum	Evarist Menkouande Elvis Guy Noupue Nguegoue
CONCACAF	Joel Aguilar	Juan Francisco Zumba Marvin César Torrentera
CONMEBOL	Wilmar Roldán	Alexander Guzmán Cristian Jairo de la Cruz
OFC	Matthew Conger	Simon Lount Tevita Makasini
UEFA	Jonas Eriksson	Mathias Klasenius Daniel Warnmark
Host (support)	Ryuji Sato	Akane Yagi

Squads

Main article: 2015 FIFA Club World Cup squads

Each team must name a 23-man squad (three of whom must be goalkeepers) by the FIFA deadline of 30 November 2015. The squads of six of the seven teams were released by FIFA on 3 December 2015 (except Sanfrecce Hiroshima, who only confirmed their place in the tournament on 5 December 2015). Injury replacements are allowed until 24 hours before the team's first match.

Matches

The schedule of the tournament, together with the emblem, was unveiled on 24 August 2015.

A draw was held on 23 September 2015, 14:00 CEST (UTC+2), at the FIFA headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland, to determine the positions in the bracket for the three teams which enter the quarter-finals.

If a match is tied after normal playing time:

• For elimination matches, extra time is played. If still tied after extra time, a penalty shoot-out is held to determine the winner.
• For the matches for fifth place and third place, no extra time is played, and a penalty shoot-out is held to determine the winner.

Play-off

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

10 December – Yokohama

Sanfrecce Hiroshima

2

13 December – Osaka

Auckland City

0

TP Mazembe

0

16 December – Osaka

Sanfrecce Hiroshima

3

Sanfrecce Hiroshima

0

River Plate

1

20 December – Yokohama

River Plate

0

13 December – Osaka

Barcelona

3

América

1

17 December – Yokohama

Guangzhou Evergrande

2

Barcelona

3

Fifth place

Third place

Guangzhou Evergrande

0

América

2

Sanfrecce Hiroshima

2

TP Mazembe

1

Guangzhou Evergrande

1

16 December – Osaka

20 December – Yokohama

All times are local, JST (UTC+9).

Play-off for quarter-finals

10 December 2015 (2015-12-10) 19:45	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	2–0	Auckland City	International Stadium Yokohama, Yokohama Attendance: 19,421 Referee: Sidi Alioum (Cameroon)
	Minagawa  9' Shiotani  70'	Report

Quarter-finals

13 December 2015 (2015-12-13) 16:00	América	1–2	Guangzhou Evergrande	Nagai Stadium, Osaka Attendance: 18,772 Referee: Jonas Eriksson (Sweden)
	Peralta  55'	Report	Zheng Long  80' Paulinho  90+3'

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13 December 2015 (2015-12-13) 19:30	TP Mazembe	0–3	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	Nagai Stadium, Osaka Attendance: 23,609 Referee: Wilmar Roldán (Colombia)
		Report	Shiotani  44' Chiba  56' Asano  78'

Match for fifth place

16 December 2015 (2015-12-16) 16:30	América	2–1	TP Mazembe	Nagai Stadium, Osaka Attendance: 11,686 Referee: Alireza Faghani (Iran)
	Benedetto  19' Zúñiga  28'	Report	Kalaba  43'

Semi-finals

16 December 2015 (2015-12-16) 19:30	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	0–1	River Plate	Nagai Stadium, Osaka Attendance: 20,133 Referee: Jonas Eriksson (Sweden)
		Report	Alario  72'

---

17 December 2015 (2015-12-17) 19:30	Barcelona	3–0	Guangzhou Evergrande	International Stadium Yokohama, Yokohama Attendance: 63,870 Referee: Joel Aguilar (El Salvador)
	Suárez  39', 50', 67' (pen.)	Report

Match for third place

20 December 2015 (2015-12-20) 16:00	Sanfrecce Hiroshima	2–1	Guangzhou Evergrande	International Stadium Yokohama, Yokohama Attendance: 47,968 Referee: Matt Conger (New Zealand)
	Douglas  70', 83'	Report	Paulinho  4'

Final

Main article: 2015 FIFA Club World Cup Final

20 December 2015 (2015-12-20) 19:30	River Plate	0–3	Barcelona	International Stadium Yokohama, Yokohama Attendance: 66,853 Referee: Alireza Faghani (Iran)
		Report	Messi  36' Suárez  49', 68'

External links

• Official website