Reunions and Rivalries: the quirks of a club lens
Looking at the World Cup through a club lens surfaces things the national-team view never shows. National teams pull their players from clubs all over the world, so the tournament quietly reunites clubmates, and every so often sets them against each other. We collect all of these moments on the Reunions and Rivalries page, and the most recent ones lead the My Club's World Cup homepage.
There are seven of them, in two families: reunions, where clubmates line up on the same side, and rivalries, where clubmates end up on opposing nations.
Reunions: clubmates on the same side
Club Chemistry
Sometimes both the scorer and the assister of a goal play for the same club back home. They are wearing the same national shirt in that match, but the partnership that produced the goal is one they also share every week at their domestic club. These in-house goals are Club Chemistry, a small, delightful proof that club partnerships travel to the international stage.
Double Act
When two or more players from the same club each score for the same nation in one match, that is a Double Act: a club brace, or hat-trick, assembled by different players who happen to share a dressing room back home.
The Handover
Football has a quiet ritual: one player comes off, another comes on. Now and then both are clubmates, so a club effectively passes the shirt from one of its own to another in the middle of a World Cup game. We call that The Handover.
Rivalries: clubmates on opposing nations
A House Divided
When a single club has players on both teams in the same match, that club is, briefly, at war with itself. One of its players might set up a goal that knocks another of its players out of the tournament. These split allegiances are A House Divided.
Both Scoresheets
The sharpest version of a house divided: the club not only has players on both sides, it has scorers on both sides. One clubmate scores for one nation, another clubmate scores for the other, in the very same game.
Beat My Keeper
A striker scores, and the goalkeeper he just beat is his clubmate. The two of them defend the same goal every weekend, and here one has put the ball past the other for a rival country.
Teammate at Twelve Yards
The rarest and most dramatic of all: a penalty where the taker and the goalkeeper share a club. Whatever happens, one clubmate gets the better of another from twelve yards, in open play or in a shootout.
Where to find them
Every club and league page carries a Reunions and Rivalries section listing that entity's moments, and the complete, ever-growing collection lives on the Reunions and Rivalries page, grouped by type. The newest few always sit on the homepage.
All seven fall straight out of the core idea behind My Club's World Cup: follow the club, not just the country. If that idea is new to you, start with What is My Club's World Cup?.