The New Zealand amateurs sit at number 5,072 on Opta's Power Rankings for football clubs around the world and found themselves on the same stage as number six Bayern Munich. Criticism of their participation should be directed at FIFA and the OFC, not at this squad of unpaid battlers.
The globe waited more than 95 years for the first 10-0 demolition at a World Cup for either national teams or clubs, but it took just two matches for the newly reformatted FIFA Club World Cup (CWC) to deliver a record-breaking thumping.
Bayern Munich, who stunned the world when opening the new UEFA Champions League last year by putting nine past a helpless Dinamo Zagreb, showed a similar ruthlessness against their Kiwi opponents in Cincinnati on Sunday afternoon.
Much of the online derision was directed at Auckland City's social media accounts for a performance that was, according to many, not worthy of their opponents' time, let alone those watching from home.
Such commentary is not deserved for a club that hails from a country without a professional football league and that qualified for the tournament via the pathway afforded to them by FIFA and the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).
FIFA's expansion of the CWC from seven clubs to 32, which could cynically but aptly be viewed as a desperate cash grab from an organisation that reported a financial loss of over $600 million (USD) in 2024, also serves as a fantastic opportunity to grow the club game in new target markets with enormous untapped pools of private money such as the USA, Middle East, South East Asia and North Africa.
With said expansion came an obligation to allocate the long forgotten Oceania with guaranteed representation through one automatic qualification slot, which, in fairness, is not an increase from the existing single OFC slot that Auckland City had already occupied in 10 of the first 20 iterations of the tournament, including a third-place finish in 2014.
Despite their regular appearances at the CWC, the increased attention on the new format means efforts have again had to be made by FIFA and the football media to tell the story of Auckland City's humble background.
A commercial salesman, a real estate agent and an engineer walk into a (cross)bar...
No, that's not the beginning of a corny joke, but rather three of the full-time occupations amongst Auckland City's starting XI against Bayern Munich.
The players and coaching staff play for no pay, outside of a weekly maximum stipend of ~$90 to cover basic expenses such as a gym membership, and many work nine-to-five jobs before turning up to weeknight training at the 3,500-capacity Kiwitea Street stadium, which has both its grounds and its facilities maintained by a volunteer workforce - the story of almost every amateur football club in all corners of the globe.
For those players with young families, and/or the Auckland City squad members who have to commute up to 90 minutes each way to get to training and home games, it's an immensely difficult but rewarding lifestyle.
Many of their first-choice players are taking unpaid leave from their full-time jobs to play in the USA, with some having exhausted all of their paid leave just to participate in the OFC Champions League in the Solomon Islands' capital city of Honiara, which hosted the tournament over a two-week period.
"It's not easy," striker Angus Kilkolly told AFP.
"It's four weeks' leave, but I don't have four weeks' annual leave, so there's unpaid leave going there."
Their main matchday squad from the OFC Champions League finals were able to make it to the CWC, but some additional squad members couldn't get the time off work to do so.
How did an amateur club end up at the World Cup in the first place?
Oceania's only two professional football clubs, Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix of New Zealand, both play in Australia's A-League in the absence of a professional league in New Zealand.
Their participation in a club league run by an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) member - Australia - means that the OFC have barred both from being eligible to play in their own Champions League, whilst the AFC also forbids both Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix on the basis of their mother federation not being a member of the AFC.
That means that New Zealand's best two clubs have no path at all through to the CWC, and it's left to the likes of Auckland City to take what's available to them.
Australia's chances of competing at a future CWC are also slim - their professional clubs are falling far behind those from cash-rich Gulf nations both on and off the pitch - but they at least have a seat at the table via the AFC Champions League.
Auckland City's players are not only denied a salary for their toil at this tournament but are not even at this stage guaranteed a share of the estimated $5 million prizemoney coming their way for playing in the group stage, with the club and New Zealand Football involved in mediation talks this year over how to distribute the funds across the country to ensure Auckland's peers get a slice of the riches.
Why can't Oceania have a professional competition, then?
It's far easier said than done, but efforts are now at least being made behind closed doors.
In early 2025, the OFC fielded expressions of interest for a new 'OFC Pro League', in which eight clubs across the Pacific would take part in a double round robin (14 matches each) before splitting off into a top-four Championship group and bottom-four Challengers group, with three and one semi-finalist to be determined from the groups respectively.
A reported 24 submissions were made to the OFC from various clubs, including some semi-professional sides from nearby Australia who, in the absence of any possibility to be promoted to the top-tier A-League, were willing to abandon their own local competitions to chase the significant money promised by the OFC in their bid to begin professionalising football in the region.
The new Pro League is intended to become the new qualification pathway to both the CWC and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, a six-team competition that will replicate the previous format of the CWC, whilst the long-term ambition is to grow professional football clubs right across the Pacific from the investment.
The OFC was delivered a killer blow when Auckland City declined interest in the competition, and with the region's most successful club suddenly finding a new avenue to millions of dollars on a quadrennial basis, few could blame them for wanting to make their own future CWC qualification more difficult.
Professional outfits Auckland FC and Wellington Phoenix have expressed a desire to join the competition as a pathway to future CWCs, but both clubs have already told the OFC they would have to send reserve teams, with the tournament slated to be run during December-January, the peak period of the A-League season.
That would undermine the integrity of the competition, according to the OFC, who were reportedly incensed by the half-commitment of the two professional sides. Nonetheless, it may be in their best interests commercially to go with it.
Auckland City deserve our love, not our ridicule
Auckland City's players are proudly boasting that they're in the USA to represent the "99.9% of footballers who aren't professional", and 99.9% of us should be right behind them in their unforgettable journey.
Commentary that they don't deserve to be there is valid if framed as a criticism of the tournament format rather than being directed at the club for simply taking on the opportunity that the tournament has awarded them.
At least until the OFC Pro League is well underway, there is a reasonable case to be made that perhaps the OFC should go back to 0.5 slots rather than one, with Auckland City or another Oceanian club forced into an inter-confederation playoff just as the New Zealand national team were under the World Cup when it was a 32-team tournament.
But it's not FIFA's job to be gatekeepers for the biggest clubs of the globe. Let's embrace the romanticism of the amateur hero living the childhood dream we've all shared.
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