The Club World Cup has finally made it to Atlanta! The festivities in the new home of U.S. Soccer kicked off at 3 P.M. with LAFC facing off against Chelsea inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. About 22,000 fans (it’s 3 on a Monday, y’all) showed up to watch this MLS vs EPL showdown, and those fans legitimately brought the hype. LAFC’s 3252 turned the VIP end into their own supporter’s section, while the vast majority of the stadium wore Chelsea blue. Here are a few final whistle thoughts from within the confines of the Benz!
Attendance
I’ll go ahead and get this one out of the way now. I’m not sure what FIFA expected with some of the scheduling and pricing on these matches, but some simply fall in worse time slots than others. To be fair, if you’re a Chelsea fan in London, this was primetime TV, but as far as in-person attendance, a mid-afternoon game on a Monday isn’t exactly setting anyone up for the best PR. That being said, tons of social media accounts and news outlets made it a point to focus on a handful of pictures taken well before opening kick to push a narrative. The 200 section inside the Benz was pretty well full, while the 100 section filled in more just after the game started. Was it what fans are used to seeing on a more regular basis inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium? No. But let’s not dump on the game just to dump on it.
I spoke with multiple fans at our live show next door who’d driven or flown in from all over, including LA, London, Chicago, Miami, the Carolinas, and more. I’d certainly love to see FIFA take lessons from this for next year’s World Cup, but I’m not getting on board hating on the tournament just because.
LAFC held their own
We know of the gap in quality between Premier League teams and most of the rest of the world. Add that to the sheer boatload of money Chelsea has dropped on players compared to a team in a league with a serious salary cap problem, and one wouldn’t be wrong to think this game could’ve been a dumpster fire for LAFC. It wasn’t.
LAFC came out aggressively and pushed Chelsea in the opening ten minutes. They then settled in to their identity of bending defensively but not breaking (mostly), to then allow guys like Denis Bouanga to strike on the counter. Chelsea obviously didn’t make it easy, but LA had opportunities in this game to stay in it. Enzo’s second half goal was incredibly demoralizing because LA had been on the front foot for about ten minutes prior, but overall this was a match LA can still use to springboard into the other matches in their group. There’s no shame in losing dos a cero to a team whose sub’s subs would give most teams trouble.
The inverse of this is Chelsea has insane quality in their passing, speed, and vision, and yet squandered quite a few chances to put this one to bed early. For everything LAFC did fairly well – and now have a chance to build on – it feels like Chelsea didn’t do enough to be convincing against some of the very large opponents they’ll likely have to face.
Grass
A quick note on the grass inside the Benz, keeping in mind this article will be live by the time we get any thoughts from the players on how it played. But the surface looked pretty good, and it seemed to play a tad slow. Atlanta is tending to the grass similarly to Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena, with UV lights being moved across the surface all hours of the day and night. At first glance, it seems to be the better option than the prior “throw down sod with minimal seams” approach and is what they’ll go with for next year’s World Cup, as well. We’ll see what the player’s opinions are, though, over the course of the whole tourney.
All in all, this was a fun match to watch, and an enjoyable opener to Atlanta’s hosting of the Club World Cup. Both teams came to play, the fans were involved, and despite timing and ticket prices, the turnout genuinely wasn’t as bad as some folks make it seem. We’ll see if that all changes as we move forward in the tournament, but I’ll take a Monday watching footy over just about any other Monday.
Let us know your thoughts down below!
[…] The Club World Cup this past summer provided valuable lessons, according to Fullerton. He noted that one of the two grass types used was “burning off” at a higher rate than the other by the end of the tournament. That data went back to FIFA and the labs, resulting in adjustments to the grass composition ratio for 2026. […]
Having a match on a Monday afternoon (so that it could be broadcast in prime time in Europe) ensured a low turnout – and that is on FIFA (along with the screaming announcer who couldn’t pronounce the players names, etc.). A couple of things struck me (i) Chelsea only occasionally passed back to the keeper (unlike AtlUtd’s constantly doing so), and (ii) the quick passing between Chelsea’s players (quick give and go’s), which LAFC (one of the better teams in MLS) only did occasionally. MLS has a very long way to go before it can claim to be a good league (and changing the salary cap rules would definitely help the journey).
Poor planning and site selection by FIFA. While I am glad I got to see a quality side like Chelsea take on one of the better MLS teams in LAFC in my favorite stadium in the ATL, if this game would have been played on the west coast and not at 3:00 on a Monday afternoon I think the attendance would have been much different. It was definitely not your typical Benz experience. The LAFC supporters brought their A-game and could be heard well from the other end in the normal ATL supporter’s section. The Chelsea fans were a little under whelming in their presence. Happy to see so many Atlanta United jerseys and still enjoyed the game with my family.
I think LAFC qualified last minute and took the place of a Liga MX side that was disqualified due to FIFA only allowing one ownership group per team. Had LAFC qualified originally, this would have almost certainly not been in Atlanta.
This one was always going to be in Atlanta but the Leon fans would’ve showed out big time
I’m not sure why you feel the need to be defensive about the attendance. It was abysmal, but it’s in no way a reflection on Atlanta or the teams. It’s purely a result of FIFAs greed and their pricing structure. And the world should rightly call them out on it. They had an opportunity to fill these stadiums is they priced reasonably and these clubs all over the world could’ve gained new fans. It’s sad and it’s bad business.
It’s not even being defensive, I think I’m just tired of the same bunch of soccer accounts being negative about literally everything on planet earth 😂 But for sure FIFA has to do better, and it’s not like they weren’t aware of this ahead of time
I feel fatigued keeping up with everything as a fan. Its becoming a chore to stay invested in the sport. I miss the days of being excited for a specific matchup in regular season play.
I realized it was your stadium! Cool. I think this will be a unique way of measuring the leagues, and confederations against one another, in real competition. So far, I think Inter Miami will get plastered by Palmeiras, and Porto in group stage, as they showed very little against the team from Egypt. Seattle lost to a very average Botafogo, (and played in a truly horrible uniform that shocked the real world. LAFC lost to a Chelsea that never went into third gear. I think MLS will do better than Liga MX, but that´s it. And the questions are: how will Brasil and Argentina teams perform, as the two leagues are competitors in South |America? And how will be top Brazilian teams, like Palmeiras, and Flamengo, do against good UEFA teams. Well, best luck to everyone.
LAFC could have and honestly should have scored at least a goal. But Chelsea showed why they are one of the best in the world. While MLS isn’t as far behind the Prem as it was just five years ago, this match showed that we still have a ways to go if our teams want to have a shot at consistently winning games in situations like these.
To me the biggest difference was the level of technical skill, especially for defenders. We have to stop comparing MLS to the PL; at least for another 10 years 😰
Totally agreed. We are nowhere near the level of mid to high table clubs in the PL and lower table clubs would beat most MLS teams 9 out of 10 times. Maybe we could compete with Championship teams? Not too sure.