Anytime that the idea of best player in the world is brought up the list starts and ends with two names - Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. When looking at 2014, picking the top player between Messi and Ronaldo seems like a futile and uninteresting task. So instead, Latin Post.com's David Salazar and Edwin Molina, as part of our Best of Soccer in 2014 feature series, are looking at players not named Ronaldo or Messi, who deserve some credit in 2014.
The Club World Cup final takes place this weekend and features a matchup between Europe's reigning champion Real Madrid and Argentinean club San Lorenzo, the winner of the 2014 Copa Libertadores.
This is seventh time in the tournament's history that the European champion takes on the South American victor. As the record stands, European teams have won five of those matchups. In the most recent final between two clubs from those two continents, Brazil's Corinthians took down Chelsea 1-0.
Real Madrid enters the contest as the clear-cut favorite, but as exhibited in this short tournament, anything can happen. Can San Lorenzo stage an upset? To see those possibilities, it is essential to see how the teams got here.
The Club World Cup is not generally looked upon as an upper echelon competition because is not particularly competitive and overly predictable. So when Real Madrid headed to play its first game on Tuesday against Cruz Azul, few expected anything but a blowout in favor of the Spanish squad. And that is what they got. But it was far from a cakewalk. Here are some big takeaways from the game.
