It finally happened: After 229 minutes of scoreless soccer in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup games played in East Rutherford, NJ, the suffering at MetLife Stadium came to an end.
Brazilian side SE Palmeiras scored in the 49th minute in their group stage match against 45-time Egyptian Premier League champion Al Ahly SC on Thursday afternoon, then did it again 10 minutes later. The Verdão secured its first win of the tournament and now top Group A, leading second-place Inter Miami on goal differential.
It wasn’t the best game of soccer on Earth, but it did show us a few things. One, Palmeiras has the speed and technique of a proper Brazilian champion. Two, the Egyptian fans come out in force. And three, no one outside the United States knows what a weather delay is.
Gols
The sun shone down on the Meadowlands for the first time this tournament with near 90-degree temperatures at the noon kickoff and high humidity. Except for the time, the conditions might be normal for teams from Brazil and Egypt.
Maybe that's why the first half was so evenly contested. Estêvão Willian, the 18-year-old winger set to join Chelsea from Palmeiras following the conclusion of the Club World Cup, once again made use of the right side of the field, running down and cutting across the Al Ahly box before launching the first real chance of the match. It went inches wide.
As the game wore on, the boys from Cairo began to find their own momentum. By the end of the first half, Al Ahly had more possession and more shots than the Brazilians. Most of those attempts were blocked, but the green backline was being tested.
Al Ahly looked to get a game-changing boost in the 37th minute when Palmeiras player Raphael Veiga was shown a straight red card following a challenge on winger Ahmed Sayed. However, referee Anthony Taylor reversed the call on Viega after a brief discussion with the assistant referee. Viega turned 30 that day, and he received a birthday gift in the form of a reduced yellow card.
Still, the half ended scoreless, and it looked as though the rest of the game could follow suit.
But then it happened. A free kick by Palmeiras’ Anibal Moreno in the 49th into the opposing box was headed into the back of the net to give the Brazilians the lead, ending MetLife’s scoreless streak in this tournament at 229 minutes. The only problem was it came from the head of Ahly striker Wessam Abou Ali.
After a first half with seven off-target shots and two highly entertaining games, the first goal coming off an own goal feels a little too on the nose.
Still, it counted. Palmeiras had been the better side to start the match and was now looking to seal the first win of Group A. In the 59th minute, a counterattack saw midfielder Maurício feed a long pass to an onside José Manuel López. The through-ball was perfectly placed, and the sub avoided a defender’s challenge and then beat keeper Mohamed El Shenawi with a shot into the right corner.
The match was then immediately stopped for nearly an hour due to “severe weather” — more on that later. After it resumed it was business as usual, with the Brazilians holding firm for the two-goal win. Estêvão was named Player of the Match for a second straight game.
The Nile is wide, but the Amazon is bigger
MetLife welcomed an announced crowd of 35,179 fans into the 82,500-capacity arena. It was the third match at the venue in five days, and for the first time, the Brazilian side wasn’t the top dog in the stands.
Much of the stadium was a sea of red. Al Ahly’s support looked to be about two-thirds of the crowd in MetLife, with the northwest sections behind the goal seeing the highest concentration of Palmeiras fans. There wasn’t a dedicated concentration of Ahly support, though fans naturally began to congregate behind the opposite goal as the match wore on. That, in turn, helped the red look far more pronounced around the stands in East Rutherford.
The support for the Egyptians shouldn’t come as a surprise. Jersey City has some of the biggest Arab communities in the United States, with one of the largest populations of Egyptian Coptic Christians in the United States. There were scarves in Arabic, and multiple tifos brought by fans. It was an imposing sight.
However, the South American fans did have the edge in one area: Sound.
Throughout the game, most of the chants and cheers came from the Palmeiras faithful. Estavao’s near miss brought out a loud groan. Just before the second Palmeiras goal, the green team had a free kick that saw Ahly keeper Mohamed El Shenawi back peddle frantically into his own goal as he punched the ball over the bar for a corner kick. That got the fans on their feet, making a second goal almost feel inevitable.
“I saw a lot of respect from both team’s fans. It’s something I admire a lot,” Palmeiras manager Abel Ferreira told Hudson River Blue after the match in his press conference. “It’s true that the stadium wasn’t full, I already talked about that (last game). It’s an immensely large stadium. But the reds and the greens were quite noticeable all around. They were two fan bases that respected one another, each supporting their team. Our opponent’s fans cheered until the final whistle to try and help their team, because they knew how one goal could change the match… But let me say that our fans are wonderful. Those that are here represent those who could not be here.”
It’s true, MetLife was just 43% full for Thursday’s noon kickoff. The game came on the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the upper bowl was open again after it was closed for Tuesday’s match.
Matthew Mangam
Weather delay in the USA
"We are going to deal not only with our opponent but also with the weather," Palmeiras manager Abel Ferreira said in a pregame press conference on Wednesday. He was proven right one day later.
In fact, the weather was the biggest talking point of the match after Palmeiras’ second goal in the 61st minute. As both teams went to the middle of the pitch, referee Anthony Taylor held up play as the game came to a pause. At 1:28 PM, Taylor instructed both teams to leave the pitch as an audible warning blurred out with an accompanying message on the large screen.
“Your attention, please. For your safety, we are going to have everyone leave the Seating Bowl area and take shelter inside the stadium because of severe weather in the area,” an official notice said on the giant screen at the MetLife Stadium. Not long after nearly every phone in the stadium press box rang out with a weather alert advising fans to seek shelter.
Despite blue skies overhead, a thunderstorm was passing just north of the stadium, and the threat of lightning forced the game to be stopped for half an hour. The concern was real, as a 15-year-old was struck by lightning in Central Park later that day. (He sustained only minor injuries.) By the time the game resumed at 2:15 PM both teams needed to readjust, with Al Ahly substituting four players.
"It wasn't easy to get back to the rhythm that the game was playing at that time," Al Ahly manager Jose Riveiro said after the game. "You have to also understand that most of the teams, including ourselves, we're coming from very long seasons, the levels of energy are not at the best so this type of interruptions are obviously not going to help for the show.
"We came back with four subs, trying to start a new game, trying to look for new adjustments to be open but we didn't succeed but it's not because of the interruption. It was the same for Palmeiras as for us. Obviously, the scenario was looking better for them at that time to try to slow down the game and it played well for them."
The incident marked the third game in three days that was stopped due to weather. Yesterday’s match between Red Bull Salzburg and Pachuca was halted for 97 minutes when a severe thunderstorm hit Cincinnati. The previous day, the sparsely-attended match between Ulsan Hyundai FC and Mamelodi Sundowns in Orlando was paused for over an hour.
The weather delay seems to be new to some fans from other countries. In the MetLife press box, many foreign journalists – especially those covering Al Ahly – didn’t understand why the match was stopping. It could be because in other parts of the world, a lightning strike or thunder delay is a rarity. But in New Jersey, the New York Red Bulls paused or outrightpostponed a dozen games in the last few years due to weather.
The chaotic nature of the summer months in the United States will continue to grow as climate change impacts our weather systems. Looking ahead to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the national teams that qualify for the tournament will need to prepare for the different climates in this continent-sized nation and different weather patterns.
As for the fans, they would be smart to pack a poncho.
