FC Barcelona are set to debut 2015 World Champions patch

In case you may have missed it earlier this month, 2014-15 UEFA Champions League winners Barcelona became the FIFA World Champions for the third time by winning the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan. Don’t fret if you missed out on it, though. Despite the fact that soccer is one of the rare sports that actually crowns a legitimate “World” champion (Looking at you, every North American-based sports league), the FIFA Club World Cup isn’t really considered a huge deal. Maybe it’s because of the fact that the European clubs don’t seem too jazzed about it, or maybe it’s because the competition in the tournament isn’t exactly elite (outside of the South American representatives that come from winning the Copa Libertadores). Either way, the Club World Cup is one of those things that should be a bigger deal than it actually is.

One way that FIFA tries to place importance on the Club World Cup is by giving the winning team the honor of wearing a nice, shiny, golden patch for the entire year. Therefore, FC Barcelona will be wearing the FIFA World Champions patch until next year’s Club World Cup.

As usual, the patch is placed on the center of the shirt, which is the optimal place to put it. All of the other winners were able to put the patch on the center of the shirt as well, with the notable exception being Real Madrid from last season. Due to the button-up collar taking up the space where the patch would normally go, Real Madrid was forced to have to wear their patch above the Adidas logo on their shirts. That’s not exactly optimal, and it gave the team a bit of a cluttered look. Fortunately, they were able to rectify this on their 2015-16 shirts.

However, I’m sure that some of you would argue that the patch actually looks better in this particular spot than in its regular spot in the center. What do you think? Is the normal way of placing it in the center the right way to do it, or is Real Madrid’s improvisation the best idea? Or should they just put it on the sleeve? There are plenty of options here, but one thing is clear: Huge competition or not, that’s a pretty nice badge.