Vinicius Junior scored one goal and assisted another to lift Real Madrid to a 3-0 victory over RB Salzburg and a Group H first-place finish in the FIFA Club World Cup on Thursday night in Philadelphia.
Federico Valverde added the second goal just before halftime and Gonzalo Garcia added the third in the 84th minute for Madrid (2-0-1, 7 points) in a second consecutive multi-goal win following a tournament-opening draw against Al Hilal.
The five-time winners of the Club World Cup in its previous format will face Juventus in a Round of 16 clash on Tuesday in Miami Gardens, Fla.
RB Salzburg (1-1-1, 4 points) were eliminated as Al Hilal held on to win their simultaneous match against CF Pachuca in Nashville, Tenn. It was Salzburg’s second defeat to Real Madrid in 2025 after a 5-1 loss in Spain in the league phase of the UEFA Champions League.
Madrid were more efficient than dominant. The teams had 12 shots apiece, with the victors’ four attempts on goal only one more than Salzburg’s three.
Madrid again played without Kylian Mbappe, who has yet to feature in the tournament due to a stomach illness that left him briefly hospitalized.
But Vinicius Junior did enough to compensate for the Frenchman’s absence on Thursday.
He failed to convert the game’s first shot on target, denied on the break by Christian Zawieschitzky after Jude Bellingham had played him into a 20th-minute breakaway.
But two brilliant moments over a five-minute stretch tilted the game squarely in Madrid’s favor.
In the 40th minute, the Brazilian ran onto another terrific ball out of the back from Bellingham, before weaving left on the dribble to evade defender Kouakou Gadou. He drove an early low finish well out of Zawieschitzky’s reach and into the bottom right corner.
In the 45th, he reached Arda Guler’s deflected pass on the right side of the box before directing a backheel pass to a wide-open Valverde behind him for an equally clinical finish past Zawieschitzky.
Bellingham had the next crucial intervention in the 66th minute, blocking Edmund Baidoo’s effort off the line with Thibaut Courtois beaten.
–Field Level Media
