6 hours ago
3
The boy from Wythenshawe who had sat on top of the Rockefeller on Friday took Chelsea to the top of the world on Sunday. It was 90F down on the pitch in New Jersey but, oh, this was cold all right. Two wonderful almost identical strikes, executed with an effortless ease, and a lovely soft-shoed assist from Cole Palmer made Chelsea the first winners of the Club World Cup, history made here. Paris Saint-Germain had seemed peerless, a side that shifted the paradigm, but they could not find a way past Robert Sánchez at one end and were picked off, victims of a perfect plan, defeated inside half an hour. It had started so well, so unexpectedly, and it ended even better, history made.
“We know that they start the games very fast, very strong,” Marc Cucurella had said but while Ousmane Dembélé, forever on the prowl for prey, almost caught Sánchez 95 seconds in, it was Chelsea who did so. The first chance was theirs inside 10 minutes and it was so close that some of this stadium celebrated, the ball bending just past Gigi Donnarumma’s right post and hitting the pole holding the net up. João Pedro had teed it up, Palmer was the man whose shot with the inside of his left foot fooled them. Not for long. That, it turned out was just a sighter; next time, the MetLife could let go for real.
Chelsea’s plan was clear: quick into the challenge, quicker to send the ball into the space behind PSG. Luis Enrique’s team took a degree of control and most of the possession, soon up at 66%, but that, it appeared, had been anticipated. This was no parked bus but space behind was denied and the ball was released rapidly, starting with Sánchez directly from his own area. And while PSG could have led, Désiré Doué’s cut-back to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia being cut out by Cucurella when he might have taken the shot himself before his effort from the edge of the area was stopped by a superb low save from Sánchez, it was Chelsea who did.
Sánchez’s diagonal went right where Nuno Mendes leapt with Malo Gusto; the PSG defender got there first but, buffeted, didn’t judge the leap well. Suddenly, he was down and Gusto was away, wide space opening on the wing before him. Reaching the area, he cut back, ready to shoot. Lucas Beraldo blocked the first effort but Gusto got it back and laid into the path of Palmer who opened up his body and curled it into the bottom of the net. Off he went, holding himself and shivering in trademark celebration.
If that was similar to his first shot, his next was almost identical to this one. Coming in from the right, Palmer saw Gusto fly up outside him. So, and this was the key, did the PSG defence. A slight pause, a little shuffle of the hips was enough to clear Beraldo and Marquinhos from his path, momentarily drawn to the run, and Palmer didn’t just put the ball in the same corner of the net; he put it in the exact same square. They had been playing half an hour and he had taken almost the same shot three times. Two had gone in, the other looked like it had.
And nor was he finished. Just before half-time, with PSG turned again, that press broken, Palmer carried the ball from near halfway, tracing a straight line in the inside-right position and given the room to do so. When he got to the edge of the area, he slipped the ball through. The pass was smooth, João Pedro running on to it, so was the Brazilian’s finish, dinked over Donnarumma as if he was playing on the beach, which 10 days ago he was. This was barely believable.
They had only completed 126 passes, but that was at least partly by clinical design: three shots on target, all of them clearly constructed and calmly executed, had given them a lead that wasn’t for overturning. Which isn’t to say PSG didn’t try after a 24-minute half-time. They were out first, waiting for Chelsea, and went for them. Sánchez almost immediately had to get to the feet of Fabián Ruiz and then scramble away a Kvaratskhelia shot. He then made a superb close-range stop from Dembélé, which really should have been taken. Chelsea got deeper, of course they did, not always in a hurry to get the ball back. When they did, they tried to keep it, each pass greeted with olés. The supporters were enjoying this. Sánchez dived to save Vitinha’s dipping effort from the edge of the area, but in truth the momentum was not what PSG would have wanted, and only rarely did Chelsea feel under the kind of pressure that might prise their fingers from the trophy.
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João Neves was then given a straight red card after 86 minutes for pulling Cucurella’s hair.
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