Nacional failed to keep alive their dream of qualifying for the 2025 Club World Cup. After losing to Sao Paulo 2-0 at the Morumbi Stadium and being eliminated from the round of 16. CONMEBOL Libertadores.
In the first leg, the score was 0-0 at Gran Parque Central, and if Bolso had managed to at least draw in the return leg (even if they later lost on penalties) they would have passed Olimpia in the first leg. FIFA ranking To determine the seedings for the competition to be held in the United States next year.
but With the loss, Nacional ended up adding 57 points in this ranking like Paraguayan Olimpia and the first criterion for breaking the tie is to consider the best performance of each team in one of the last editions of the Libertadores. At that stage, Olimpia was the one who took advantage, reaching the quarter-finals in the 2023 edition, something that Nacional had not achieved since the 2020 edition. This classification takes into account what was achieved and the points obtained in the 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 editions of the Cup, in addition to awarding three points for each final stage passed.
“The dream in the medium term is the Club World Cup, because we are the only club in Uruguay that can dream of that possibility,” said Alejandro Balbi, president of the Tricolor, at the start of the season, at the same time that footballer Mauricio Pereira had announced his Club World Cup victory. He came to accept that it was “the biggest goal of the year”.
Apart from this elimination against São Paulo, where Nacional was unable to win the first leg played at Central Park, the match that the tricolour fans regret the most in terms of adding that point that was missing to overcome Olimpia is Defeat to Libertad For the last date of the group stage: May 30, Bolso traveled to Asunción, already ranked, and faced Libertad, already eliminated. The visitor took the lead in the 13th minute with a goal from Franco Romero, but the local team turned the result around with goals from Óscar Cardozo (29) and Alejandro Silva (41), winning 2-1.
It should be noted that If Nacional had surpassed Olimpia in this classification, they would not have qualified directly for the Club World Cup, but would have had to wait for the last champion to repeat. (The last three years), that is, in 2024, Flamengo or Fluminense won the Cup (Palmeiras was eliminated in the round of 16); or River Plate won the title and qualified for the Club World Cup by the champion’s share and not by classification (millionaire above wallet in this ranking).
On the other hand, if he had eliminated Sao Paulo, Nacional would also have continued the race to keep alive their chances of winning the 2024 Libertadores title, the second path that Tricolor had to take to qualify for the Club World Cup..
In this sense, Peñarol are now the only Uruguayan team with a chance of qualifying for the Club World Cup.although the exclusive path for Mania (who will now face Flamengo in the quarter-finals after eliminating The Strongest) is to win the 2024 Libertadores title.
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