India, July 1 -- European giants Inter Milan and Manchester City being eliminated in a matter of hours by a club from Brazil and another from Saudi Arabia are results that can provide validation to the Club World Cup.

Simone Inzaghi wasn't wide of the mark when he compared his new team Al-Hilal beating Manchester City 4-3 to climbing "Mt Everest without oxygen"; the round-of-16 result was being the best advertisement for Saudi Arabia since billions were poured into its football project. Fluminense's story is even better: a club battling relegation last year are now among the best eight in the world, and they got there by surprising Inter Milan with an aggressive start and scoring very early (German Cano, 3) and very late (Hercules, 90+3)...