FC Barcelona capped off a nearly perfect 2015 run on Sunday, beating Argentina's River Plate 3-0 meaning Barcelona win 2015 FIFA Club World Cup. The victory marked the eighth time since the Club World Cup was founded in 2000 that a UEFA football club has walked away with the final trophy. Just as notably, the trophy is Barcelona's third in the FIFA Club World Cup-elevating the Spanish soccer squad past Brazil's Sport Club Corinthians as the most decorated team in the tournament's history.

An Easy Win

Barca, who earned their spot in the Club World Cup this year thanks to their victory in the UEFA Champions League in the spring, hardly had to strain themselves at all to add another title to their 2015 trophy case. After receiving a bye into the semifinals, FC Barcelona topped China's Guangzhou Evergrande 3-0 to earn a spot in the finals. There, they executed yet another 3-0 victory to clinch their third Club World Cup victory.

Lionel Messi is back to top form, following his injury spell this fall, but the Argentine soccer star (and likely 2015 Ballon d'Or winner) wasn't Barca's MVP for the Club World Cup. In fact, Messi was sidelined for the first match against Guangzhou Evergrande, while teammate (and fellow Ballon d'Or nominee) Neymar was kept on the bench. Those two absences left Luis Suarez to dominate the match, and he did just that, scoring three goals to singlehandedly put Barcelona in the finals.

Manager Luis Suarez did put Messi and Neymar on the soccer pitch for the championship match with River Plate. Still, while Messi scored the first goal and Neymar provided the assist, Suarez was the star, netting two goals in the second half to get his team the win.

A Near-Perfect Year

For some fans, the great performance from Suarez in the two Club World Cup matches will prove that the Uruguayan forward should have been a Ballon d'Or finalist, alongside Messi and Neymar. (Reigning Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo, of course, got the third slot.) Regardless of who got nominated for awards this year, though, or who won them, perhaps the most impressive thing in the entire football world this year was how FC Barcelona became more than the sum of their parts.

Sure, Barca have an awful lot of talent. You could make a case that the Messi-Neymar-Suarez trio is the strongest front line in club football history. But Real Madrid has a lot of talent, too, and they haven't won a single trophy this year. The current Barcelona squad is so remarkable because of the fact that Messi, Neymar, Suarez, and the other players on the team were able to come together as a team and have a near-perfect year as a result.

For those keeping track, the FIFA Club World Cup win marks Barcelona's fifth trophy for 2015. This year alone, Barca won the La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup, and the Club World Cup. Had they not lost to Athletic Bilbao, Barca would have had a perfect six-trophy calendar year. (Barcelona has accomplished this feat once before, in 2009.)

Even the loss against Athletic Bilbao could be argued as a not-so-fair outcome. When Barcelona played Bilbao on August 14th, for the first leg of the Spanish Supercup, they'd only had three days to rest since beating Sevilla 5-4 in the draining, down to the wire UEFA Super Cup final. The Sevilla match had gone to extra time and had put even Barcelona's best players to the endurance test.

Three days simply wasn't enough time for them to recover and present their best performances in the Supercopa de Espana-especially given the fact that Athletic Bilbao were coming into that match off eight days of rest. The scheduling of the two tournaments put Barcelona at a distinct disadvantage-even if they were the better team.