Sounders drawn into Club World Cup’s ‘Group of Death’

The Seattle Sounders were drawn into what might be the toughest Club World Cup group, which on the broadcast was even dubbed as the dreaded “Group of Death” by the host.

No disrespect to the Sounders, but that’s mainly due to the other clubs in the group: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid and Botafogo.

Collectively, the group has the third highest valuation, according to Transfermarkt.

I am pretty sure we could have figured all this out in about five minutes. But here we are, the complete draw of the FIFA Club World Cup via @transfermarkt-com.bsky.social

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— Manuel Veth (@manuelveth.bsky.social) December 5, 2024 at 11:39 AM

The full schedule for the group is expected to be released in the coming days, but the Sounders will open against Botafogo.

The top seed will be French giants PSG, who have won Ligue 1 10 of the last 12 seasons and have finished no worse than second since 2010-11, when they finished fourth. They have also qualified for the UEFA Champions League 12 straight years, making it to the semifinals last season. They are currently leading Ligue 1 with an undefeated record of 10-0-3 and are the eighth-ranked team in the world according to Opta.

The second team in the group is Atletico Madrid, generally considered to be the third biggest team in Spain. They are the only team outside of Real Madrid and Barcelona to win La Liga in the last 20 years, having done so in 2013-14 and 2020-21. They’ve not finished outside the Top 3 in La Liga in the last 12 seasons and are currently third in the table with a 9-1-5 record. Opta ranks them as the 14th best team in the world. Interestingly, Obed Vargas has said his favorite European team growing up was Atletico Madrid.

The other Group B team is Brazil’s Botafogo, who was the final team to qualify for the tournament after winning the club’s first-ever Copa Libertadores last week. Although they’ve not traditionally been a super club, they are also on the verge of winning Brazil’s Serie A for the first time since 1995. They were relegated to Serie B as recently as 2020, which happened to be the season after João Paulo left for the Sounders. They are now owned by American businessman John Textor, who briefly owned the Seattle Reign after he bought OL Groupe.