Wijnaldum Hopes to Make History at Club World Cup

The last time Liverpool made it into the Club World Cup was back in 2005, when they lost in the final. They have a chance to lift the trophy next month when they travel to Qatar to participate as part of the busy festive period.

While the timing is...not great, it would be nice to add another piece of silverware to the already over-stuffed Liverpool trophy room.

Gini Wijnaldum talked to the official site about the upcoming tournament, which the Reds will enter during the semi-finals.

“First of all, it’s really difficult to qualify for a tournament like this,” Wijnaldum said. “Second of all, you play against other teams who also had to do a lot of work to come into this competition. That’s why we have to enjoy it the most - because you never know if it’s going to be your last time in a competition like this. And, on the other side, if you want to play in this competition as much as possible you need to win the Champions League. It also gives you something in the Champions League. If you win the Champions League trophy you can play the World Cup for teams, so it also gives you another reason to want to win the Champions League.”

It’s hard to guess how manager Jürgen Klopp will portion out his players to make two separate sides for the Club World Cup and also the League Cup match that they will be expected to play 24 hours earlier. There’s a good chance that Wijnaldum will not be on the plane to Qatar at all, but if he is, he’s looking forward to potentially making history for the club in the competition.

“You go into football to make history and that’s what we want to achieve with the team we’re playing in,” he explained. “We have a good team. We are friends, we work hard for each other. We have a team that when we look back later we can say we achieved things. This will definitely be one of the moments when we look back, we can say we achieved something big.

“Yes, because when you look back we will always say, ‘We won it the first time’. If we win it then our names will come forward. It would be a nice thing for us but also for the people who will look at the history later and see that we won it.”

The Reds are already on the path to picking up five trophies, counting that sweet UEFA Super Cup victory in August, so why not make it six instead?