Chelsea at the Club World Cup

The Club World Cup is competed between the champions of each of the six continental confederations plus the league winner from the host nation. From England, since it started in 2000, there have been two winners – Manchester United in 2008 and Liverpool in 2019.

The forerunner of this tournament was the European-South American Cup, better known as Intercontinental Cup, that ran between 1960 and 2004 between the European Cup/Champions League winners and the South American Copa Libertadores winners over a two-leg home and away basis and from 1980, as a one-off match in Japan. The only English winners were Manchester United in 1999.

Mateo Kovacic is our only current player to have won the trophy before. He won it twice with Real Madrid in 2016 and 2017.

Chelsea took part in the 2012 edition, which was held in Japan. We beat Mexican side Monterrey in the semi-final before losing by the only goal to Corinthians in the final.

Chelsea stats

Since we lost successive games in September against Man City and Juventus, the Blues have only been defeated twice in our last 28 matches, winning 18.

Cesar Azpilicueta scored his first goal of the season against Plymouth, taking our total goalscorers in 2021/22 to 18 (excluding own goals).

Milestones

Read our exclusive interview with Christensen on his decade as a Blue and targeting a gold badge on his shirt

Al Hilal stats

Al Hilal are based in Saudi Arabia capital Riyadh and play their home games in the 68,000 King Fahd Stadium. They play in all royal blue.

They have won a record 17 Professional League trophies, including four of the past five. In all they have won over 60 official titles since their formation in 1957.

Al Hilal qualified for the Club World Club as winners of the AFC Champions League. They are making their second appearance at the competition having finished as the fourth best team at the 2019 tournament. They are looking to become the first Saudi Arabian side to make the final.

They currently stand fourth in their league with 31 points from 17 games, 13 points behind leaders Al Ittihad. Al Hilal have lost two of the last 29 games in all competitions. They are unbeaten in six including five wins, one of which was on a penalty shoot-out.

In the Club World Cup, Al Hilal despatched Abu Dhabi local side Al-Jazira 6-1 on Sunday which was the biggest victory in the tournament’s history.

Discipline

Single yellow cards and pending suspensions that could not be served during the confederation’s competition are not carried over to the Club World Cup tournament.

If a player is sent off as a result of a direct or indirect red card, he will automatically be suspended from his team’s subsequent match. Any match suspension that cannot be served during this competition will be carried over to the next official club match.

Referee and VAR

Referee: Cesar Ramos from MexicoVAR: Mauro Vigliano from Argentina

Ramos took charge of Al Hilal's victory in the last round, awarding the Saudi side a late penalty in their 6-1 victory. He also officiated a recent World Cup qualifier between Canada and USA in which Christian Pulisic featured, as well as three games at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

The video assistant will be aided by the latest artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the hope of enabling offside decisions to be detected in seconds as part of a FIFA trial running throughout the tournament. A system of cameras high up in the roof will follow the players and track up to 29 data points at 50 times per second, creating three-dimensional models of a player's body position to identify which part of the body is furthest forward.

It is also hoped that the tracking data will improve the accuracy of when the ball is played, allowing more accurate and quicker decisions to be made. The 'robot VAR' disallowed a goal for Al-Jazira earlier in the tournament.