Spain’s Real Madrid to meet Italy’s Juventus in FIFA Club World Cup after eliminating Salzburg, Man City face Al Hilal.
Real Madrid swept past Red Bull Salzburg with a 3-0 win in their final Group H match to set up a round of 16 meeting with Juventus at the FIFA Club World Cup.
Vinicius Junior and Federico Valverde netted first-half goals for the Spanish giants in the match in Philadelphia on Thursday.
Gonzalo Garcia added the third in the 84th minute for Madrid in a second consecutive multi-goal win following a tournament-opening draw against Al Hilal.
The result eliminated Real’s Austrian opponents as Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal leapt above Salzburg with their 2-0 win against Mexico’s Pachuca.
Manchester City beat Juventus 5-2 earlier in the day and, as Group H winners, will now face Al Hilal in the next round.
The defeat was Salzburg’s second loss to Real Madrid in 2025 after a 5-1 loss in Spain in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League.
Madrid, five-time winners of the competition, were more efficient than dominant. The teams had 12 shots apiece, with the victors’ four attempts on goal only one more than Salzburg’s three.
Madrid again played without Kylian Mbappe, who has yet to feature in the tournament due to a stomach illness that left him briefly hospitalised.
But Vinicius Junior did enough to compensate for the Frenchman’s absence on Thursday.
He failed to convert the game’s first shot on target, denied on the break by Christian Zawieschitzky after Jude Bellingham had played him into a 20th-minute breakaway.
But two brilliant moments over a five-minute stretch tilted the game squarely in Madrid’s favour.
In the 40th minute, the Brazilian ran onto another terrific ball out of the back from Bellingham, before weaving left on the dribble to evade defender Joane Gadou. He drove an early low finish well out of Zawieschitzky’s reach and into the bottom right corner.
In the 45th, he reached Arda Guler’s deflected pass on the right side of the box before directing a backheel pass to a wide-open Valverde behind him for an equally clinical finish past Zawieschitzky.
Bellingham had the next crucial intervention in the 66th minute, blocking Edmund Baidoo’s effort off the line with Thibaut Courtois beaten.
Real will now face Juventus in Miami on Tuesday, while City stay in Orlando for their round of 16 match with Al Hilal on Monday.
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