Paris St-Germain have been swatting aside all-comers all season, from wrapping up the Ligue 1 title in early April to demolishing Inter Milan in a Champions League final so one-sided it was scarcely believable.
They seemed to be breezing through the Club World Cup in similar fashion, too, beating Bayern Munich with nine men and then thrashing Real Madrid 4-0 on their way to Sunday’s final.
But, heavily tipped to cruise past Chelsea in New Jersey, this time it was the Parisians who were left stunned.
Even before Coldplay’s colourful half-time show arrived, Cole Palmer had scored two superb goals and created another for Joao Pedro to put the Blues 3-0 up. That is how it ended.
“I’ve never seen PSG turn the ball over as much as they have in this first half,” said former England midfielder Andros Townsend on Dazn.
“Full credit to Chelsea for their willingness to track the ball in this New York heat.” As fellow pundit Gareth Bale put it: “PSG have been PSG’d.”So how did Enzo Maresca’s side manage it? And just how good are Chelsea?
As has often been the case over the past two years, Palmer playing well meant Chelsea played well.
The 23-year-old has operated predominantly down the middle as a conventional number 10 for much of this season, but at times he struggled in that position. At one point he went 18 games without scoring and recently admitted he had endured a “difficult time these past whatever months on and off the pitch”.
However, having been moved back out to the right during this tournament – a position he made his own under previous boss Mauricio Pochettino – he has looked somewhere near his best again.
Chelsea had clearly prioritised a fast start in the final, with Maresca saying he thought they “won the game in the first 10 minutes”, with their aggressive approach and high press putting their opponents under unfamiliar stress.
“The idea was go man-to-man because if you leave spaces to PSG they will kill you, so we tried to be very aggressive and suffocate them early on and that intensity was crucial in the first 10 minutes,” Maresca said.
Once Chelsea had asserted their authority, it was then obvious they were keen to target PSG’s left-hand side, as Joao Pedro frequently drifted out wide to pair up with Palmer.
Their method was often direct, with passes dropped in behind the PSG defence, but it meant left-back Nuno Mendes was given a torrid time.
“We had a lot of success exploring the left side of their defence,” said Maresca. “Things worked perfectly for us due to the effort the players put.”
Townsend described it as a “tactical masterclass”.”That’s what they’ve done – they’ve stretched this PSG defence, we’ve never seen a team do this to them,” added ex-Chelsea midfielder John Mikel Obi.
comments
