EAST RUTHERFORD. N.J. – It was the type of performance that sucked the life out of the opposition quickly. Players in wide spaces seized every moment they could find, catching the opponents by surprise, scoring early enough to put the game out of reach by halftime. That is how Paris Saint-Germain played in the UEFA Champions League final against Inter, and again in their Club World Cup semifinal against Real Madrid on Wednesday. It was also how Chelsea played at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, beating PSG at their own game to win the first edition of the expanded Club World Cup.
“Going into the game straightaway, we set the tone,” Chelsea’s Levi Colwill said post-match. “We pressed the life out of them. We knew this was our last game of football for the season so there’s no way I was going to go on holiday and sit there thinking, ‘I wish I could have gave that little bit more for the team,’ and I’ve told everyone this before, and we went and gave everything and that’s what the scoreline reflects and that’s why we won today.”
The mindset resembled PSG’s all-gas-no-breaks style that made them Europe’s most entertaining team for the last six months, quickly overwhelming the opposition en route to their first Champions League title and making them the favorites to win the Club World Cup. They got a taste of their own medicine quickly in the New York City suburbs – they looked fatigued quickly as Chelsea took the game to them, going down 2-0 by the half-hour mark thanks to a brace from Cole Palmer and conceding a third before the break thanks to Joao Pedro. Fatigue quickly set in for PSG, the individual players fading one by one as a win quickly slipped out of reach. Frustration kicked in with a few tense moments, most notably with Joao Neves‘ 89th-minute red card and a post-match scuffle involving PSG manager Luis Enrique and Chelsea’s Joao Pedro.
“I think that PSG are a team that, you either press them high or you’ll be in trouble because they have so many talented players,” manager Enzo Maresca said post-match, “but if you give them time to link up and get the ball, they’re so good that in my personal opinion, if you give them time, then you’ll be worse off.”
Chelsea, though, put their own spin on things. In a match between two teams that prefer to hold the ball, the Blues happily ceded possession to PSG and had just 34% possession when all was said and done. The attacking plan was sound, though – they outshot PSG 10 to eight and posted 2.06 expected goals to the opponent’s 0.53. The intense first half paved the way for a routine second, the mission more or less accomplished by halftime.
“They have three midfielders,” Maresca noted. “Two of them [Neves and Fabian Ruiz], they were in charge for Reece [James] and Moises [Caicedo]. Vitinha was in charge for Enzo [Fernandez]. Analyzing them, we saw that was a good opportunity to exploit that space and we used Cole and Malo [Gusto] in that side to create a little bit and overloaded that side and [tat] was just the game plan.”
Setting the tone, as Colwill referenced, was crucial to the success of Maresca’s plan.
“The idea was to go man to man,” Maresca said. “I think PSG, they are so good that if you give them time, you are going to struggle. In my personal opinion, you have to press them very intense. I think the first 10 minutes, we were able to do it. In our ideal world, we have to do that for 90 minutes, 95 but we knew that because of the weather conditions, [it] was not possible to do for long time but we tried to be very aggressive, don’t give them time and then on the ball, we had some very good moments. We exploited the space that we planned and [it] was very good.”
It comes as little shock that Palmer, the Blues’ brightest star, would deliver in moments like this one. The England international is building a habit of delivering in major moments and is easily at the top of the depth chart as Chelsea’s 20 attackers do what they can to earn valuable playing time. The surprise, though, was that Joao Pedro also felt like a natural fit on the field alongside Palmer. Less than two weeks ago, Joao Pedro was still on Brighton and Hove Albion’s books but now has three goals in three games for Chelsea, earning a start in the final over Liam Delap, who had been the go-to earlier in the competition.
Maresca has lauded Joao Pedro for his versatility, noting that he can play in multiple positions across the front line, but his ability to make an impact against organized defenses is making him a quick favorite with the manager.
“Joao, I can say, is an amazing player,” Maresca said. “We can really use him with teams that defend in a very low block with no spaces because he’s really good in tight spaces.”
The vision for this version of Chelsea may not have always been clear, but a year after Maresca’s hire, the chaos of roster building still looms large three years after BlueCo acquired the club and American businessman Todd Boehly assumed his role as chairman. Even amidst the disorganization, Chelsea’s Club World Cup win offered a glimpse at what they can be at their very best – and that their belief in a group of rising talents is well-founded. But first, a well-deserved break is in order.
“I think that during this season, we were heading towards the right direction and we ended our season very well and now we lifted this trophy, a fantastic trophy,” Maresca said. “About the future, fortunately, I have three weeks’ vacation now because that’s all I want. It’s been 15 months nonstop, and then we’ll see what happens next season.”