Granted, I would be more excited for this tournament if global footy schedules werent already so mashed together, so I am concerned over the quality of play, but I love the chance for other teams to try and prove their station in world club ball.

I watch the South American teams and know they can play. Mix in some of the strong Asian teams and you have an interesting tournament.

Here are the groups:

Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.

Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.

Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.

Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.

Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.

Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.

Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.

Group H: Real Madrid, Al-Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.

Obviously, we see the stand-out clubs and everyone will favor them. I am curious who your dark horse teams might be........

This party is clearly missing Ronaldo and his Al Nassr. It's a shame the Saudi club didn’t get something like a wild card...(

It would have been cool to see Messi, Ronaldo, and Neymar all involved. Messi's Inter Miami was super lucky in getting picked due to being the host nation.

Ofcourse they made it in a way where messi would get involved and proves again how much messi has had his hand held his whole career.

I dont understand how they selected the teams, it's weird seeing non UCL winners in this.

It would've been an improvement if they only allowed UCL winners to be in this.

Yeah, they clearly went out of their way to get Messi in on this, what do you want, he is the iconic last WC winner, so of course you'd like to get either him or Ronaldo to make publicity for the competition.

Indeed, if you are gonna do that, at least try to get Neymar and Ronaldo as well but guess they just couldn't find an excuse to squeeze them in.

Alright, two weeks to go until the main tournament of the summer—any predictions? What are you expecting from it?

I fear that the MLS teams will be exposed, showing the world just how far off the level they are compared to the rest of the big leagues. Regionally, the MLS has struggled with the Mexican league historically, with very lopsided results. Inter Miami has all the eyes on them with Messi and mini Barca playing, but let's be real here…..

I hope the MLS shows well and gets further into the tournament to allow younger talent to factor in a place to play. The big 5 league will always be the draw, but if the MLS can show some good teeth, it will only help the cause.

As for the big teams, I worry about fatigue for them. Granted, they might not be taking this tourney as seriously and playing with reserves or experiment a lot, but it's been a long season for these teams, and a player can only push so much. You would have to mark the big teams down to make it to the late rounds, and given how PSG just crushed Inter, many would put them as favorites.

If the big teams take this seriously, we should see a high-level tournament and some exciting matchups in the knockout stages.

I’ll be at the Real Madrid vs Pachuca and the Benfica and Bayern matches, then see about the round of 16.

Hope it’s a good tourney overall!!!