Group H at the 2025 Club World Cup begins on Wednesday. We look ahead to the action with our Pachuca vs Salzburg prediction and preview.
Pachuca vs Salzburg Stats: The Key Insights
Red Bull Salzburg are narrow favourites with the Opta supercomputer, winning 41.8% of the pre-match simulations. Pachuca and Salzburg are meeting for the first time in a competitive match. Across the 2024-25 Liga MX campaign, Salomón Rondón was involved in more goals than any other Pachuca player (15 goals, 5 assists).Pachuca and Red Bull Salzburg face off on Wednesday in what looks a top-heavy Group H at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
European giants Real Madrid are the overwhelming favourites to top the group, but the battle for second place appears wide open. Al Hilal (50.6%) are seen as the likeliest to join Xabi Alonso’s side in the knockout stages, but RB Salzburg (34.4%) and Pachuca (21.8%) also have a very realistic shot at progressing.
So, when Pachuca and Salzburg meet for the first time ever in a competitive game, there’ll be a lot riding on the outcome.
While this is Salzburg’s debut in the Club World Cup, Pachuca have some history in the competition. The Tuzos – or “Gophers” – made five appearances in the previous format, the joint most for a Mexican club alongside Monterrey.
Pachuca earned their place in the Club World Cup by winning the 2024 CONCACAF Champions Cup, defeating MLS side Columbus Crew 3–0 in the final. It was their sixth such title, more than any other club since the turn of the century.
Domestically, though, it’s been a mixed bag. Pachuca finished 16th out of 18 teams in the 2024-25 Liga MX Apertura but improved in the Clausura, finishing eighth before being eliminated by Club América in the quarter-finals.
One bright spot has been former West Brom, Newcastle and Everton striker Salomón Rondón. He led the team with 20 goal involvements (15 goals, 5 assists) across the league campaign, and attempted 102 shots – more than double any teammate.
Salzburg won the Austrian Bundesliga 10 seasons in a row from 2013-14 to 2022-23 but have finished runners-up to Sturm Graz in each of the last two campaigns. It’s fortunate for them, then, that the time frame for the UEFA rankings – used to decide which teams qualify – is four years. Salzburg were the ninth-best eligible team in the rankings, making them the lowest-ranked UEFA team to qualify.
Their attacking threat is led by Oscar Gloukh, who contributed 11 goals and 8 assists in all competitions during the 2024-25 season. That tally of 19 goal involvements was the joint most for Salzburg, and only two players in the Austrian Bundesliga assisted more than Gloukh’s eight.
Pachuca vs Salzburg Prediction
The Opta supercomputer has Salzburg as favourites to win this game, but only just. They came out on top in 41.8% of the latest 10,000 simulations.
Pachuca took all three points and gave their last-16 hopes a massive boost in 31.8% of the sims, while 26.4% ended level.
Pachuca vs Salzburg Squads
Pachuca:
Sebastián Jurado, Carlos Moreno, José Eulogio, Sergio Barreto, Alonso Aceves, Eduardo Bauermann, Bryan González, Carlos Sánchez, Federico Pereira, José Castillo, Gustavo Cabral, Luis Rodríguez, Jorge Berlanga, Pedro Pedraza, Santiago Homenchenko, Israel Luna, Agustín Palavecino, Javier Eduardo López, Alan Bautista, Brian García, Elías Montiel, Víctor Guzmán, Emilio Rodríguez, Illian Hernández, John Kennedy, Oussama Idrissi, Alexéi Domínguez, Salomón Rondón, Kenedy, Avilés Hurtado.
Head Coach: Jaime Lozano
Red Bull Salzburg:
Alexander Schlager, Jonas Krumrey, Christian Zawieschitzky, Salko Hamzić, Jacob Rasmussen, Samson Baidoo, Frans Krätzig, Stefan Lainer, Joane Gadou, John Mellberg, Tim Trummer, Jannik Schuster, Soumaila Diabate, Maurits Kjærgaard, Mamady Diambou, Takumu Kawamura, Mads Bidstrup, Oscar Gloukh, Valentin Sulzbacher, Sōta Kitano, Karim Onisiwo, Yorbe Vertessen, Edmund Baidoo, Petar Ratkov, Adam Daghim, Enrique Aguilar, Dorgeles Nene, Moussa Yeo.
Head Coach: Thomas Letsch
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic men’s football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off, here are the Opta Power Rankings for both sides.
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Pachuca vs Salzburg Prediction: 2025 FIFA Club World Cup Preview Opta Analyst.
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