The 32-team line-up for the most globally inclusive club football tournament ever, the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™, will take another step towards completion this month as the 2024 CONMEBOL Libertadores nears its thrilling climax. Five teams from South America have already qualified for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™, meaning just one spot remains, and three of the four clubs still in the 2024 CONMEBOL Libertadores have a chance of claiming it. Paraguayan club Olimpia can also qualify if results go their way. One of the semi-finalists, River Plate (ARG), can rest easy: their place among club football’s global elite in the United States next year is already assured via the ranking pathway. But the Buenos Aires giants can still have a significant impact on which of their continental neighbours join them at the tournament.

River face Brazilian side Atlético Mineiro in the first leg of their last-four tie on 22 October. If they emerge victorious following the second leg at home a week later, they will keep their hopes of winning their fifth continental crown intact, and it is a feat Paraguayan club Olimpia will be hoping River achieve. If River do lift the trophy after the final in Buenos Aires on 30 November, they will travel to the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ as South American champions. That would leave the ranking pathway qualifying place that is currently River’s to Olimpia. If River do not advance to the final, however, Olimpia’s hopes will already be over at the end of October.

That would leave Atlético Mineiro in the final facing the team that comes out on top between CA Peñarol (URU) and Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas (BRA), who play the first leg of their match-up in Brazil on 23 October with the return a week later. Whichever of those three teams wins the title will also clinch the place reserved for the 2024 CONMEBOL Libertadores champions at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™.

Having each won one of the three previous South American titles, the Brazilian trio of Palmeiras, Flamengo and Fluminense had assured themselves of being part of the exciting new tournament, which will see 63 matches played across 12 US venues between 15 June and 13 July 2025. Though not in this year’s CONMEBOL Libertadores, River’s great domestic rivals, Boca Juniors, have already claimed one of the two available qualifying spots via the ranking pathway as a consequence of their consistently good results in the competition across the four-year qualifying period.