New Delhi, July 14 Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca revealed the game plan his players used in their 3-0 victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the final of the FIFA Club World Cup. Maresca revealed why Chelsea opted to press the European champions high up the pitch and how he believes the London club won the game in the first 10 minutes of the match.
"I think PSG are a team that you either press them high or you will be in trouble because they have so many talented players. If you give them time to link up and get the ball, they are so good.
"I think we won the game in the first 10 minutes, and the message before the game was to make them understand that we are here to win the game. I think the first 10 minutes, the team was there. It probably set a little bit of the tone of the game. Then again, the quality of the players, the game plan, everything was good,” Maresca told Chelsea’s media team.
Cole Palmer struck twice, while Joao Pedro added the third, to ensure Chelsea went into half-time with a 3-0 win. PSG were never able to claw their way back into the game, while João Neves was shown a red card in the 85th minute, but PSG were already out of the contest by that point.
Maresca outlined further how they had planned before kick-off to go toe-to-toe with Paris in midfield, allowing the Blues to make the most of space out on the wings.
“They have three midfielders. Two of them were charged for Reece and for Moi, and Vitinha was charged for Enzo. Analysing them, we saw that it was a good opportunity to exploit that space.
“We used Cole (Palmer) and Malo (Gusto) on that side to create a little bit of an overload. It was just one game plan; we tried to use different game plans. We try to help the players to be in a position where they can give everything.
"Today it worked quite well, but overall it has been the effort from all the team, all the players. I’m very happy, especially for them, because they deserve this moment. At the end of the day, you can give a detailed plan to your players, but they need to execute it, and they did that so well,” he added.
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