Although few people would have predicted that New Zealand's semi-professional Auckland City FC would be able to compete with Bayern Munich in the first match of their FIFA Club World Cup campaign, the German heavyweights' 10-0 victory at Cincinnati's TQL Stadium was more or less a worst-case situation.

Given that Auckland's first-team players only play semi-professionally and are therefore not at full strength, as much difference as that would have made, it will be seen as a business attended to by Bayern, who were up against an Auckland team. Despite suffering a heavy loss, the Kiwi squad set a new record at this competition by allowing six goals in the first half and four more in the second.

Al Hilal's 6-1 victory against Al Jazira in 2022 was the previous largest margin of victory. In addition to maintaining a clean sheet against the defending champions of the New Zealand National League, Bayern surpassed that margin by twofold.

Kingsley Coman's header in the sixth minute set off Bayern's rout. The Frenchman was one of four players to score more than once that day, netting two in the opening half. Michael Olise added two goals before halftime, and Jamal Musiala entered the game in the 60th minute, scoring a hat-trick in the second half in just 17 minutes. Thomas Muller added to the Bavarians' score in the 89th minute, bringing it to 10-0, after netting in the first half. Munich's scoring sheet was completed by right-back Sacha Boey.

The New Zealanders' Silver Linings

Auckland City's star striker Harry Kane was kept somewhat silent by a little win, as he scored none of the ten goals. Auckland's trip to the United States will be lengthy as they are missing many players and traveled without their head coach, Paul Posa, employing an interim for this tournament, which is during the Kiwi off-season.

Considering the vast disparity in financial resources between the two teams—Bayern's world-class lineup is worth over 900 million euros, while Auckland City's is under 5 million euros—the conclusion was likely correct.

The positive aspect for Auckland is that they are entitled to £2.6 million in prize money due to being the only Oceania representatives in this competition, which more than quadruples their earnings from last season. It remains to be seen if they can use that motivation to put on a substantive performance against Portugal's SL Benfica and Argentina's Boca Juniors.

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