(ESPNFC) The Club World Cup pits the champions of the six continental confederations as well as the national league champions from Morocco -- the host country -- against one another in a week-long tournament.
With the first game of the 2014 Club World Cup kicking off on Wednesday in Morocco, ESPN FC's Nick Ames takes a look at each of the teams vying to replace Bayern Munich as champions.
MOGHREB TETOUAN
How they qualified
The Moroccan side qualified as the host team after winning a surprise league title in May -- only the second such success in their history. They pipped existing champions and last year's Moroccan representatives in this competition, Raja Casablanca, by three points on the final day of the season, despite losing to them 5-0 in one of their league meetings. But their form has not carried into the current campaign. Tetouan have not won in their past five games and sit in mid-table, which was a more natural position for the club before their first title in 2012.
Coach: Aziz El Amri
Coach of the Tetouan side since 2011, El Amri was charged with saving the club from relegation upon his appointment but has instead led a relatively unheralded club to previously uncharted heights. A devotee of tiki-taka who has honed an incisive, short-passing style, he has succeeded in bringing a large number of youngsters through without compromising success.
Moghreb Tetouan's Mouhcine Iajour has experience playing in the Club World Cup, having faced Bayern Munich with Raja Casablanca last year.
Star player: Mouhcine Iajour
The striker arrived from Raja Casablanca this year and should settle into the Club World Cup instantly. He scored twice in last season's competition, with one of his goals coming in the semifinal win over Atletico Mineiro. The other arrived against Wednesday's opponents, Auckland City, and the Morocco international's experience could prove decisive when he faces the New Zealanders again.
Hopes and prediction
Out in quarterfinal playoff. Although El Amri has said he hopes to negotiate three hurdles en route to a final against Real Madrid, Moghreb are in poor form and newcomers to this stage. Auckland are not the most intimidating of opponents, and Moghreb will benefit from home advantage, but they do not look strong enough for a genuine challenge this time.
AUCKLAND CITY
How they qualified
It was fairly predictably on the face of things -- winning the OFC Champions League for a fourth consecutive year. They did lose one of their group games -- they received a warning against tiny Amicale from Vanuatu -- but a 3-0 semifinal first leg win over Tahitian side Pirae rendered a 2-1 away reverse inconsequential.
In the final, they came up against Amicale again and, duly chastened, won 3-2 on aggregate with two goals in the last 23 minutes of the second leg. It spared their blushes and prevented Amicale, whom they had also beaten in the 2011 final, from becoming perhaps the most obscure participants to date in the Club World Cup.
Coach: Ramon Tribulietx
Young Spanish coaches are all the rage, but Tribulietx, 42, has been with the club since 2008 and, after spells as assistant manager and co-manager, he took sole charge of Auckland City in 2011-12. Like Moghreb, his team plays a technical, attacking style of football honed during his time on the staff of several Segunda Division clubs back home. He was linked with the New Zealand national team job a year ago.
Ramon Tribulietx's Auckland City have been OFC regional champions four times in a row. Will they be able to make an impression in Morocco?
Star player: Emiliano Tade
Like Auckland City, Tade is a veteran of this competition. The 26-year-old Argentine won the golden ball in last season's OFC Champions League after scoring the winner against Amicale with three minutes to play, and he was top scorer, with 12 goals in the domestic championship. He has little pedigree back home, having played for fourth-tier side Villa Mitre while studying law, but he moved to New Zealand in 2008 and would surely relish a semifinal with San Lorenzo if his team progressed that far.
Hopes and prediction
Quarterfinals. This will be Auckland City's fifth Club World Cup, with the highlight coming in 2009 when they defeated Al Ahly and TP Mazembe. They have not won a match since then but were only defeated in injury time by Raja Casablanca last year and have rarely been overrun. Their experience should prove decisive against Moghreb, but victory over ES Setif might just be a demand too many.
WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS
How they qualified
The club is, remarkably, just two-and-a-half years old but they won the A-League in their second season and only last month qualified for the Club World Cup after a tense, tight AFC Champions League win over the Saudi side Al-Hilal. They had beaten a who's who of Asian football to get there and came through a tricky group before outdoing Sanfrecce Hiroshima, Guangzhou Evergrande and FC Seoul. That set up the final, in which the only goal was scored by striker Tomi Juric in the first leg to seal a dizzying rise.
Coach: Tony Popovic
Popovic is fairly well known to followers of the English game, thanks to his five years playing for Crystal Palace in the 2000s. He returned there to become Dougie Freedman's assistant in 2011-12 but left to become Wanderers' first head coach at the end of that season and, after they finished runners-up in his inaugural campaign, he was named A-League coach of the year.
Ante Covic's heroics in the Asian Champions League belie his 39 years of age.
Star player: Ante Covic
The much-travelled goalkeeper is now 39, but since he joined from Melbourne Victory in 2012 he has looked stronger than ever. He was named the AFC Champions League's best player after his performances in this year's tournament, which culminated in two clean sheets in the final, and he looks in fine condition to continue playing into his fifth decade.
Hopes and prediction
Quarterfinals. The Wanderers' rise has been swift, but they have hit the buffers since winning the Champions League and are currently sitting bottom of the A-League with no wins from their first nine games. Matters were hardly helped several days before the Club World Cup, when the players threatened to boycott the competition over a dispute about the share of the club's prize money they will receive. They look set to play, but they won't be around for long.
CRUZ AZUL
How they qualified
Cruz Azul won the CONCACAF Champions League last season after a 17-year drought, eventually winning out after tough ties against two of their compatriots. First, they beat Tijuana 2-1 on aggregate in the semifinals, with Julio Dominguez scoring the winner as they overturned a 1-0 deficit, and then Mariano Pavone's strike was enough to secure a win over Toluca on away goals after the teams had drawn 0-0 in Mexico City, where Cruz Azul are based. In the quarterfinals, the goals flowed when they beat Sporting Kansas City of MLS 5-1 in the second leg after going into it a goal behind.
Coach: Luis Fernando Tena
Tena is a veteran of the Mexican league and has managed Cruz Azul on three previous occasions -- he won the title in 1997 -- and also had a spell as caretaker coach of the national team last year, after previously being an assistant. He rejoined Cruz Azul in December 2013 and has already taken them to their first Club World Cup.
Luis Fernando Tena has taken Cruz Azul to the Club World Cup before. Can he make history by winning it for the Mexican giants?
Star player: Christian Gimenez
The former Boca Juniors schemer was born in Argentina and represented his home country's under-20 team before becoming a Mexican citizen in 2013 and controversially receiving five caps for them. He has been a mainstay of the domestic league with Veracruz, America, Pachuca and, since 2010, Cruz Azul, for whom his flair, imagination and goal-scoring from the No. 10 position have been indispensable.
Hopes and prediction
Semifinals. They should have too much for the Western Sydney Wanderers, but Real Madrid will probably be too difficult in the last four, unless the European champions' concentration is not what it ought to be. The Mexicans are a fine outfit and might be considered the second-best team in this competition, but they can consider themselves unlucky to have landed on the wrong side of the draw.
SAN LORENZO
How they qualified
The Copa Libertadores are a difficult beast, but after pulling up few trees in the group stage, the winners of Argentina's 2013 Inicial set to work with impressive wins over Brazilian teams Gremio (on penalties) and Cruzeiro before Bolivian side Bolivar were dispatched 5-1 in the semis.
In the final, Mauro Matos gave them the lead away at the Paraguayan club Nacional. They conceded an equaliser at the death, but back in Buenos Aires, a Nestor Ortigoza penalty was enough to spark scenes of jubilation and give San Lorenzo their first Libertadores triumph.
Coach: Edgardo Bauza
Bauza has been around the block since finishing a respected playing career largely spent at Rosario Central. He made waves when leading unfancied Ecuadorian club LDU Quito to the Copa Libertadores title in 2008. They fared well in that winter's Club World Cup, too, and only lost in the final to a Wayne Rooney goal for Manchester United. He returned to LDU after a brief spell in Saudi Arabia, subsequently replaced Juan Antonio Pizzi a year ago and led San Lorenzo to their own continental silverware.
Mario Yepes has been superb for Colombia but his lack of mobility is a concern vs. Brazil.
Colombian Mario Yepes was the oldest outfield player at this year's World Cup. San Lorenzo will need the veteran to be at his very best to leave Morocco with the Club World Cup.
Star player: Mario Yepes
Time will tell as to the long-term wisdom of signing the 38-year-old Colombian, who was the World Cup's oldest outfield player during the summer, but the centre-back is still a class act and has helped the team to three clean sheets in its past four domestic outings. Yepes, who was playing in Serie A for Atalanta last season, will at the very least bring extensive experience of international tournaments to the fray in Morocco.
Hopes and prediction
Semifinals. It might be by a hair's breadth, but San Lorenzo will fall narrowly to ES Setif in the last four and leave Argentina stuck on two finalists in the competition's 11 editions. A showdown with Real Madrid will be expected back home, but that might have to wait for at least another year.
ES SETIF
How they qualified
Competing in the CAF Champions League after winning their sixth Algerian title in 2012-13, ES Setif won their first continental title since 1988 in thrilling fashion. After coming through their group unbeaten, they faced Congolese giants TP Mazembe in the last four, and after going down 3-1 in a highly charged second leg, they won the tie on away goals when Sofiane Younes scored 15 minutes from the end.
Another side from the Democratic Republic of Congo, AS Vita Club, awaited in the final, and the script was similar. A 2-2 draw away was followed by a Younes goal in Algeria -- in a second leg played at a larger stadium in Blida -- that, though canceled out that night, won out through the away-goals rule again.
Coach: Kheireddine Madoui
Madoui was an Algerian international midfielder who spent two spells with ES Setif and now, as manager, has already broken one record. He became the youngest coach to take a team to the final of an African continental tournament last season and, at 41 years old, there should be plenty more to come. Thought to have received lucrative offers from abroad, he instead signed a new, three-year contract with the club last month.
Algerian champions ES Setif might be playing down their chances, but if they can show the same excellent play that won them the 2014 African Champions League, they have a strong title chance.
Star player: El Hadi Belameiri
Another scorer of crucial goals at continental level, Belameiri found the net six times during the Champions League success, though goals dried up in the knockout stages. He did, however, finish as the joint top scorer in the tournament, and the diminutive French-born forward, formerly of Metz, has been making sufficient waves to be linked with a call-up to Christian Gourcuff's much-favoured Algerian national side.
Hopes and prediction
Runners-up. Madoui has played down his team's chances by citing particular concerns about fatigue amid a hectic domestic schedule, but his team's stock has risen considerably in recent times, and he can be backed to lead ES, who fought a number of tough and tense matches in last season's Champions League to a final place on their debut. The conditions should help them, as should the fact that Algerian football is currently experiencing a boom.
REAL MADRID
How they qualified
The win that sealed Real's qualification looks resounding enough -- a 4-1 win over deadly rivals Atletico in Lisbon -- but it would have been the other Madrid team preparing for Morocco, had Sergio Ramos not headed home deep into added time. Real ploughed on after that and overran their opponents to take their much-vaunted 10th European crown, with Gareth Bale nodding in the vital second before Marcelo and a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty added the gloss.
If they had left it late, they could reflect they had already thrashed the reigning champions, Bayern Munich, 5-0 on aggregate in the semifinals just one round after overcoming 2014 runners-up Borussia Dortmund.
Coach: Carlo Ancelotti
Carlo Ancelotti might have been harshly sacked by both Juventus and Chelsea in the past but cannot really be said to have failed anywhere. One of his triumphs came in this competition seven years ago, when his AC Milan side beat Boca Juniors 4-2 in the final, held in Yokohama, and a repeat of the trick would add nicely to the three Champions Leagues he has also presided over (two with Milan, one with Real).
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Star player: Cristiano Ronaldo
There is little point in changing the record. The crowds in Rabat and Marrakech will be baying for Cristiano Ronaldo, and it is easy to see why, as the chances he will not put on a show appear slim. He has only failed to score in three of his 23 games for club and country this season and has atoned for any perceived deficiencies this might turn up by scoring 31 times.
Hopes and prediction
Winners. It is difficult to see Real not taking the trophy, with six of the past seven been won by European sides. They will be expecting nothing less and, even though James Rodriguez looks likely to miss out through injury, should have the resources to win both games without too much fuss.
The caveat is sides from outside Europe perhaps have a touch more motivation to make an impact in this competition, and Real are certainly the side to target, but with anything approaching their usual level of focus, they should lift the trophy for the first time.