East Rutherford – The stage was set for the Men’s FIFA Club World Cup Finals at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
After an impressive run by Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) in which they only conceded one goal on their road to the final, they had one more opponent to face before they could claim the crown of being the Club World Cup champions. The opponent was Chelsea an English club from West London and they were seen as the underdogs coming into this matchup against Paris. It was an intriguing matchup to say the least as the two giant clubs were ready to clash and battle for the trophy.
Leading into the matchup there was a lot of talk about PSG’s tactics and how Chelsea would deal with the pressing from PSG’s defense led by their star winger Ousmane Dembele.
Early on it seemed like Chelsea was the more prepared team as they were able to break the press in the 22nd minute with a long ball from the goalkeeper to the right back Malo Gusto, who then beat PSG’s defense and gave an assist to Cole Palmer for the first goal of the matchup.
It did not stop there as Chelsea kept dominating PSG as Palmer scored a second goal eight minutes later to make it 2-0, and then 13 minutes later Palmer assisted Joao Pedro to make it 3-0 to end the first half.
In the second half PSG were met with a tall task being down three goals, they fought but were unable to mount a comeback against Chelsea as the game would end with the European Champions losing 3-0 to the Premier League side.
Later in the game tensions rose when in the 85th minute João Neves was shown a red card for pulling Marc Cucurella. It did not stop there, as the final whistle blew both players and staff were involved in a on-field brawl that resulted in PSG’s Head Coach Luis Enrique shoving Joao Pedro.
In his postgame statements Enrique explained the situation and what he was trying to do at the end of the game.
“I tried to separate the players; there was tension. We should have all prevented the situation from escalating. I have no problem speaking up,” said Enrique.
