Kylian Mbappe, Cole Palmer, Pep Guardiola's new Man City project and the winners and losers of the 2025 Club World Cup

Kylian Mbappe missed the entire group stage with a nasty bout of gastroenteritis - but that was nothing compared to the pain inflicted upon the French forward during his eagerly-awaited reunion with Paris Saint-Germain.

Mbappe played every minute of Real Madrid's humiliating 4-0 loss to his former club but proved utterly incapable of impacting a shockingly one-sided semi-final.

Indeed, the game in New Jersey merely hammered home just how much PSG have improved since he left the Parc des Princes - and how much Real have regressed since he arrived at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Of course, it has to be acknowledged that the Xabi Alonso era has only just got under way. Los Blancos should get better and better on the Spaniard's watch, but the size of the rebuild required has now been made shockingly clear.

Right now, Real are nowhere near PSG's level, making Mbappe's move to Madrid look one of the most poorly-timed decisions in football history.

Let's be honest: Inter Miami's participation in the Club World Cup was purely opportunistic, an attempt to use the 'Lionel Messi effect' to generate interest and boost ticket sales.

However, while Inter Miami definitely didn't earn their chance to perform on the global stage, they undoubtedly made the absolute most of it. The Herons may have been ultimately outclassed by PSG (there's no shame in that these days!) but they did MLS proud just by reaching the last 16.

Furthermore, despite the "bloodbath" in Orlando, Javier Mascherano's men have clearly taken a huge amount of confidence out of qualifying for the knockout stage. They've won three games on the spin since returning to MLS action, with a rejuvenated Messi scoring six times in the process.

There's every chance, then, that the Club World Cup could prove a pivotal moment in Inter Miami's season - and not just in terms of helping to convince their Argentine superstar to sign a new contract with the franchise.

Chelsea upset PSG - in every sense.

The Parisians were fully expected to beat Chelsea in much the same manner as they had Atletico Madrid, Inter Miami, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid - but their hopes of winning a historic quadruple were as good as over by half-time in the final.

Basically, the Blues overwhelmed PSG with the kind of intensive pressing and deadly transitions that Luis Enrique's side had been dismantling everyone else with for the previous six months - and there was absolutely nothing the European champions could do about it. At one point in the second half, the Olé's even came out for every Chelsea pass as an increasingly desperate PSG tried to recover the ball.

Still, nobody expected the collective head-loss which followed, with Joao Neves sent off for a pull of Marc Cucurella's hair before Luis Enrique got involved in a post-match brawl that ended with Joao Pedro on the deck.

It was all very undignified and reflected poorly on the PSG coach and his players. They're obviously not used to being outplayed - and it showed in New Jersey.

Consequently, while Luis Enrique insisted afterwards there is never any shame in finishing as a runner-up, PSG embarrassed themselves by behaving like the sorest of losers.

Cole Palmer suffered a dreadful dip in productivity during the second half of last season, with the attacking midfielder only really turning up for the Europa Conference League rout of Real Betis. He was also worryingly quiet for the majority of Chelsea's Club World Cup campaign.

However, Palmer once again proved himself to be a man for the big occasion in the States, reminding the world of his nonchalant brilliance with a delightful double and a classy assist in Sunday's final win over PSG, meaning he's now been directly involved in six goals in his past three finals for club and country.

"It's happened again. I like finals," the England international pointed out in his own inimitable, simplistic style - and, in fairness to Palmer, it really does look like absolutely nothing fazes him. Despite the searing temperatures in East Rutherford, he once again lived up to his 'Cold' nickname with a couple of ridiculously cool finishes.

Indeed, the biggest compliment you can pay Palmer is that he was the best player on a pitch graced by some of the leading contenders for this year's Ballon d'Or. There's no doubt, then, that he'll be in the running for the 2026 prize if he can continue producing these kinds of decisive and dazzling displays for Chelsea and England on the game's grandest stages.

Pep Guardiola said all along that winning the Club World Cup wouldn't make up for Manchester City's abysmal 2024-25 campaign. However, it would have at least generated some serious optimism going into the new season.

As it stands, though, there is only scepticism over the strength of Pep's new project, with uncomfortable questions now being asked of a coach and a team that suffered an embarrassing last-16 loss to Al-Hilal.

The Saudi Arabians may have invested a lot of money in their squad a couple of summers ago but Abu Dhabi-backed City have pumped £289 million ($392m) into theirs since January - yet they don't look anything like a potential title-winning team.

There's even talk that Nico Gonzalez, who was signed during the winter window for £50m ($67.5m), might be moved on before the start of the new season, which really doesn't inspire much confidence in the coherency of their recent spending spree.

Obviously, new signings take time to gel and Guardiola remains one of the game's greatest tacticians. City will also point to the fact that a lot of money was made just by reaching the knockout stage in the U.S.

But key player Rodri suffered an injury setback in the States and, as even Guardiola has acknowledged, the true cost of cutting their recovery time from last season will probably only become clear around Christmas.

From a purely sporting perspective, City got next-to-nothing out of the Club World Cup - but it could yet take an awful lot out of them.

Just when Inter fans thought things couldn't get any worse, along comes the Club World Cup and only deepens the sense of doom and gloom around San Siro.

May 31 was a dark day for the club, with the Nerazzurri hammered 5-0 by PSG in the final of the Champions League, but June 30 wasn't much better.

A team still coming to terms with that historically bad defeat in Munich, as well as the subsequent departure of coach Simone Inzaghi, slumped to a dismal 2-0 defeat to Fluminense in the last 16 of the Club World Cup.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Lautaro Martinez and Beppe Marotta then went in on absent midfielder Hakan Calhanoglu in their post-match interviews, resulting in a dressing-room divide that has cast the club in a terribly unflattering light.

We always knew that the Champions League final would signal the end of an era at Inter - but nobody expected the break-up of a brilliant side to be quite so bitter.

During the group stage of the Club World Cup, Flamengo winger Luis Araujo proudly declared, "We have great teams in Brazil who are all capable of facing any team in the world." And he couldn't have been more right. Brazil had four teams in the tournament - and all four of them reached the knockout stage.

Flamengo and Botafogo were responsible for the biggest upsets in the group stage, beating Chelsea and PSG, respectively, before bowing out in the last 16.

Palmeiras made it all the way to the quarters, while Fluminense reached the semis - with their progress only checked by Chelsea, who have spent a fortune on players in the past two years.

"There is no way to compete with the Europeans in terms of finances," Flu coach Renato Gaucho acknowledged. "They can sign great players and form very strong teams."

But he also pointed out that the tournament offered irrefutable evidence of the strength of the Brazilian game. No nation had more clubs or players in the last 16.

"Football is decided on the field," Gaucho added, "and the Brazilian people should be very proud of what their clubs have been doing on the field."

In complete contrast to their Brazilian counterparts, Argentina's teams endured miserable Club World Cup campaigns.

Granted, they only had two representatives, in Boca Juniors and River Plate, but both had early eliminations. They only managed one win between them - River's 3-1 victory over Urawa Red Diamonds - while Boca didn't even manage to beat Auckland City, who had been trounced 10-0 by Bayern Munich.

The gulf in quality to Europe's top teams is not the issue here, though. It's the rather glaring gap to Brazil's finest. Indeed, the Club World Cup merely confirmed what the Copa Libertadores has been flagging for some time: a worrying decline in the quality of Argentina's top teams.

Remember, Boca and River met in a massively hyped Copa final in 2018 and they've both recorded a runners-up finish in the interim - but the last six editions have been won by Brazilian teams, while four of the finals were all-Brazilian affairs.

Losing their most promising players earlier than ever before certainly doesn't help - River Plate product Franco Mastantuono has just joined Madrid at 17 years of age - but that's also an issue for their Brazilian rivals.

What's really concerning is that not even wonderfully-well supported clubs like Boca have the resources to compete with Brasileirao Serie A sides for South America's top talent. The net result was Argentina's Club World Cup representatives having the best fans at the tournament - but the worst results.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino hailed the dawn of a "NEW ERA OF FOOTBALL" after Al-Hilal beat Manchester City in the last 16, which was over-egging a bit.

However, Al-Hilal's thrilling 4-3 triumph in Orlando was undoubtedly hugely significant, the biggest upset in the entire tournament and a bigger boost for the credibility of the Saudi Pro League than anything Cristiano Ronaldo has done over the past two years.

Indeed, the likes of Sergej Milinkovic felt Al-Hilal's shock progression to the quarter-finals effectively vindicated the high-profile players who had decided to move to the Middle East while still in their 20s. "Let's see if they will criticise us now," the former Lazio midfielder said.

Of course, it's still possible to have all sorts of issues with those transfers, while the Saudi Pro League has spent a colossal amount of cash to get to this point.

However, the men behind the plan to conquer world football will have been only further emboldened by Al-Hilal's historic achievement - because you simply can't put a price on that kind of PR.

Credit to Nicolas Jackson, he was quick to apologise for his red card against Flamengo - which came just four minutes after his introduction as a substitute. He acknowledged that he'd let down everyone who'd stood by him after the dismissal that brought a premature end to his Premier League campaign.

"I'm so angry at myself," he wrote on social media. "No excuses. I take full responsibility. I'll reflect, I'll grow, and I'll come back stronger for the badge and for everyone who believes in me."

Sadly for Jackson, though, there can't be anyone left at the club who still believes him. He's become a liability - and one that Maresca no longer has any need to tolerate, with Chelsea having signed two No.9s this summer in Liam Delap and Joao Pedro, both of whom impressed in the States. The latter was sensational, in fact, scoring three times in three appearances, after only arriving from Brighton in time for the quarter-finals.

Consequently, Jackson's days as Chelsea’s first-choice centre-forward are already over, and the abiding memory of his time at the club will be the senseless sending-off in Philadelphia that summed up his costly lack of composure.

The common consensus is that Bayern Munich made a fraction under €50m from competing in the Club World Cup but the risk really wasn't worth the reward. Not with Jamal Musiala having suffered a severe injury in the United States that is likely to sideline him until well into 2026.

The challenge that both broke Musiala's leg and dislocated his ankle remains the subject of some debate, with Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer having accused his PSG counterpart Gianluigi Donnarumma of recklessness.

Musiala, though, insists that "there's no-one to blame". "I think situations like this happen and now I'm just going to use the next period of time to build up my strength and positivity again," the attacking midfielder said on Instagram.

With that kind of admirable attitude, young Musiala should make a rapid recovery. However, his return can't come soon enough for Bayern.

Musiala is arguably their best player, which is why Vincent Kompany could barely contain his anger while trying to discuss his injury after the PSG game.

The coach knows full well that finding a worthy replacement is going to be incredibly difficult - and Bayern are already having enough trouble trying to sign a left winger as it is!

Chelsea are "world champions" but are they really the best team in the world? Absolutely not. The Blues finished fourth in last season's Premier League and were coasting through the Conference League while Europe's elite were competing in the Champions League.

However, what we can say is that the Blues' unprecedented £1.5 billion spending spree is starting to pay off. Enzo Maresca's expensively assembled young squad is very clearly going places, as so emphatically underlined by their comprehensive defeat of a PSG side that had spent the previous month humiliating top teams.

Chelsea got under the Parisians' skin like no other team before them but also demonstrated the kind of intensity and quality that marks them out as legitimate contenders to win next season's English title. In that sense, the Club World Cup couldn't have gone any better for the Blues.

Granted, their lack of a proper pre-season could catch up with them, but they made an obscene amount of money from winning the tournament (Pedro and Delap are pretty much already paid for!) - and, even more importantly, they generated an invaluable amount of belief from doing so.

"Everyone has talked a lot of sh*t about us all season but I feel like we are going in the right direction," an understandably fired-up Palmer told DAZN. "The manager is building something special, something important."

The Club World Cup wasn't short on quality or upsets - two key components in any engaging competition. However, there's simply no getting away from the fact that the conditions raised questions for next year's World Cup in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

For starters, several coaches and players were very unhappy with the state of the pitches, which Real Madrid superstar Jude Bellingham said were "not great at all". Luis Enrique was particularly unimpressed with the playing surface at Seattle's Lumen Field, one of the venues for 2026.

"I can't imagine an NBA court being full of holes!" the PSG boss fumed after his side's 2-0 win over Seattle Sounders. "The ball bounces almost as if it were jumping around like a rabbit."

Then, there was the weather. Cooling breaks were absolutely imperative due to the typically high temperatures across the U.S., while Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said that the heat was so stifling it was "impossible" to organise normal training sessions and midfielder Enzo Fernandez admitting that he felt "dizzy" during games.

Even worse, six matches were delayed by thunder storms, as play is suspended in American stadiums for safety reasons when lightning is detected within a 10-mile radius.

"For me, it's not football," Maresca said after Chelsea's last-16 meeting with Benfica was suspended for 113 minutes. "I think it's a joke. I can understand that for security (safety) reasons you are to suspend the game. But if you suspend seven, eight games, that means it is probably not the right place to do this competition."