Sports 

Bronze and gold up for grabs

  • Bayern Munich are out to emulate Barcelona’s historic achievement of 2009/10
  • Tigres are out to ruin their hopes in the Club World Cup final
  • Al Ahly and Palmeiras will do battle for bronze

FC Bayern München will go into Thursday’s showdown with Tigres UANL hoping to make it six out of six. Having won the Bundesliga, German Cup, UEFA Champions League, German Super Cup and UEFA Super Cup, the Bavarian giants now want to put the icing on the cake by lifting their sixth trophy of an historic season.

For their part, Tigres, who have become the first Concacaf club to make the global decider, head into it with the benefit of an extra day’s rest. The Mexican side will be counting on in-form striker Andre-Pierre Gignac, one third of a formidable attacking trident completed by Carlos Gonzalez and Luis Quinones. Indeed, two of the three have won an Alibaba Cloud Award for Man of the Match en route to the final.

In the day’s curtain-raiser, Al Ahly SC of Egypt will take on Brazil’s SE Palmeiras in the play-off for third place. Both sides will be keen to make the podium, especially the Brazilians, who came to Doha targeting a final berth but will now have to settle for the bronze medal at best on their tournament debut.

Al Ahly will be aiming to replicate their Japan 2006 feat of finishing third at the Club World Cup. Having qualified as CAF Champions League winners, that Red Devils side, under Portuguese coach Manuel Jose, took third-place at the expense of Mexico’s Club America after losing to SC Internacional in the semi-final.

The matches

Play-off for third place

Al Ahly – Palmeiras
Thursday, 18:00 local time, (Education City Stadium)

The final

Bayern Munich-Tigres
Thursday, 21:00 local time, (Education City Stadium)

What they said

“We can play better than we did in the semi-final. The final is certainly more important, and we want to win the title. We can make history, but it’s still a big challenge. We’re so close to winning our sixth title this season, something that would historically be quite significant.”

Robert Lewandowski

“No other Mexican team have gone this far, but now we want more. We came here hoping to lift the trophy and now that we’re close, we’re encouraged and motivated that we can achieve our goal.”

Carlos Gonzalez

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Palmeiras striker Luiz Adriano scored against Al Ahly in the FIFA Club World Cup semi-finals in 2006. He was 19 at the time and wearing the colours of Internacional.

Sourced from FIFA

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