Internacional vs Al Ahly was the one we've been waiting for, putting two quality teams against each other that attracted journalists other than a bunch of bloggers. The atmosphere was easily the best of the tournament thus far, with both sets of supporters keeping the noise up all match. If this were a home fixture for either side, you could imagine that the noise would have been deafening.

But for me, all I wanted was a taste of The Duck. He was bigger than I expected and had a physique similar to Cristiano Ronaldo, but the babyface and yellow boots gave him away. He started the match and immediately impressed, showing fantastic chest control and deft touches that other players struggled to achieve in the wet conditions. He had pace and power, and inevitably opened the scoring with a fine finish. The best was yet to come as, early in the second half, Pato flipped the ball up in the air with his heel before running down the sideline juggling the ball on his shoulder. Bit fancy, but it brought the crowd to it's feet.

He eventually went off with what looked like severe cramps but the 17 year old, whose ability was still almost a legend prior to this tournament, had done plenty to add to his reputation. The tricks were the same as any you'd see on a playground, but the intelligent vision and movement he displayed were most impressive. He worked the defensive line like a seasoned pro, moving into the channels and running across the centre backs to give his midfield a pass (which failed to come). Internacional struggled to find any rhythm this match and Pato, along with Fernandao, were the only two who consistently kept the ball moving to the right areas in attack.

Hopefully weather conditions will be better in the final and young Alexandre Pato will really come to the fore. But we've been given a taste of The Duck and it was mighty delicious.

I hate football wordplay, but it's just too easy.

You'd think that anytime you see a match between the club champions of entire confederations, there would be plenty of individual talents on show. But after two FIFA Club World Cup matches the talent pool is still looking a bit thin.

Matchday 1 was especially bare. Sure there was Grant Young of Auckland FC, who showed why he earned 1 cap for South Africa, and Flavio of Al Ahly who demonstrated all the skill and flair of a Brazilian. Although he's actually from Angola, but if I said he demonstrated the skill and flair of an Angolan that wouldn't have really meant anything.

Matchday 2 saw Club America kick off against Korean side Jeonbuk. The Koreans were organised and energetic but lacked a cutting edge, second half substitute Botti was creative up front but wasn't on quite the same level as his near-namesake at Roma. Club America's standout players were Claudio Lopez and Blanco, which was unsurprising, but the two stars in the twilight of their careers are hardly the exciting young talents that I was hoping to find.

But these clubs were supposed to be of a lower quality, that's why they battled each other for the right to play Internacional and Barcelona in the next round. Today sees Club America take on the former, and there should finally be some players worthy of some attention from top clubs. Pato "The Duck" Alexandre alone should be worth the price of admission and my attempts to scout him will surely be matched by top sides across Europe.

After watching some rather uninspired football thus far, the FIFA Club World Cup is finally about to get interesting.

Scouting is easy.

Chelsea may have paid Tottenham a couple million pounds for Frank Arnesen and his scouting network but they were paying for his connections, not his eye for talent. A quick browse through the players he brought to Tottenham (Emil Halfredsson, Spase Dilevski, Rodrigo Defendi, David Limbersky et al) showed that the world's premiere Chief Scout got a hell of a lot more wrong than he got right. In fact, if I compare the real life careers of all the youngsters I unearthed in Football Manager 2006 in the last year alone to those that Arnesen has - the evidence clearly shows that Abramovich should be handing me a few hundred thousand quid a year instead. The World Club Championship, chock full of relatively unknown players, represented a perfect opportunity to hone my skills further.

So as Auckland FC and Al Ahly kicked off I was sure that a few players would catch my eye, and a couple quick emails to Premiership clubs would signal the beginning of a new career as a football scout. But after 20 odd minutes I realised the one thing that every talent spotter must be capable of, that I was clearly not - enduring terrible, terrible football matches in search of new talent. Auckland FC were full of industry and effort, Al Ahly were high on technical skill but the match remained somewhat amateurish. Passes flew miles out of bounds by accident, players fell comically and the referee seemed a bit confused.

I'm committed to sticking to the task of finding some true talent that has to exist when you pit the best clubs from each confederation against each other. But in 94 grueling minutes I learned exactly why Frank Arnesen's job is not quite as fun as, say, Steve McClaren's. Popping over to watch FH Hafnarfjordur in order to scout Halfredsson or Viktoria Plzen to get a final view on Limbersky is almost not worth whatever Roman is paying him.

Almost.