Saturday Night Off-season Open Thread 2025-18 & Mundialito Preview!

I’m going to temporarily pause the bit with the lists. Tonight, I present to you a preview of this summer’s most exciting (and only) soccer competition! Yes, it’s the FIFA Club World Cup, aka El Mundialito, aka the warmup to next year’s actual World Cup.

In this version of the Club World Cup, the field has expanded to 32 teams and it’s formatted in much the same way as the real World Cup used to be with 8 groups of 4 and only the top two teams advancing. AS GOD INTENDED! Let’s take a look at Day 1, shall we?

So, the first game is exactly one week from TODAY with Messi’s Inter Miami going up against

Some A-hole. Actually, it’s Al Ahly, who are from Cairo and have a brand new Spanish coach just in time for this tournament. That can’t bode well…

Match Days One

Weird wording, right? Of course, what I mean is that these are the first matches for each team (all times Pacific):

Reactions

The Alka Seltzer will come in handy for the Bavarians after all those pretzels and beer. More reactions in list form!

• Newly-crowned Kings of Europe (because they won the Champions League) PSG versus Atlético Madrid is going to be one hell of a match!
• Palmeiras v Porto in the Colonizer v Colonized Bowl!
• Newly-crowned Dukes of Europe (because they won the Conference League) Chelsea v LAFC in the Butthole!
• Come Fuck Me will try to give Inter another good thrashing.
• You’re going to get an UHD if you Mamelodi total strangers, you slut!

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The rest of the schedule follows:

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Predicciones de los Grupos

For reference, here are the groups:

I think the following teams will advance from the first four groups: Palmeiras, Porto, PSG, Atlético Madrid, Bayern, Boca, Chelsea, and Flamengo.

I think the following teams advance from the second set of groups: Monterrey, Inter, Borussia, Fluminense, Man City, Juve, Real Madrid, and Pachuca.

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In this space, I will tell you what I’m drinking as I type this post. Today’s drink is: Dr. Pepper.

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Your weekly Psych gif:

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Your weekly hot girl pic:

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Your weekly video:

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One last thing:

Seriously, hat tip to Brocky: