Why Kilmarnock were 90 minutes from being champions of the world... kind of
Long before the Club World Cup, Killie were playing for the title of best team on the planet
FIFA’s new, expanded, Club World Cup is approaching the knockout phase and the reaction has been… mixed.
The new 32-team tournament, being held in the USA, will eventually crown a team from one of the six confederations the best in the world but the idea is not a new one.
The Club World Cup has been in existence, in a smaller format, since 2000 but the desire to crown a club side the best on the planet goes back to the very inception of the game.
In 1875 English FA Cup winners Wanderers travelled north to face Queen’s Park, the Scottish Cup champions, and were beaten 5-0.
Given there were only two official competitions in the world at the time, the Spiders can probably claim to have proved themselves the best team on the planet.
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There was the ‘Football World Championship’ from 1876 to 1904 between Scottish and English club sides, the Thomas Lipton Trophy in the early 20th Century, the Copa Rio in the 1950s, and Wolverhampton Wanderers declared themselves champions of the world when they defeated Hungary’s Honvéd in 1953.
But what if we told you that Kilmarnock were 90 minutes away from having at least a semi-credible claim to being the world champions?
Allow us to tell you the story of the International Soccer League…