{"id":63561,"date":"2025-07-14T00:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T00:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/63561\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T00:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T00:41:10","slug":"chelsea-stun-psg-to-win-club-world-cup-after-cole-palmers-cool-double-club-world-cup-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/63561\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea stun PSG to win Club World Cup after Cole Palmer\u2019s cool double | Club World Cup 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

The boy from Wythenshawe who had sat on top of the Rockefeller on Friday took Chelsea<\/a> to the top of the world on Sunday, that shiver celebration shown to everyone. It was 90F (32C) in New Jersey, humid too, but oh, this was cold, all right.<\/p>\n

Two wonderful, almost identical strikes, executed with an effortless ease, and a lovely soft-shoed assist from Cole Palmer led Chelsea to the expanded Club World Cup<\/a>. That Tiffany trophy, a great, big gold coin, had their name engraved into it alongside Gianni Infantino\u2019s, the billion-dollar team that won the billion-dollar competition.<\/p>\n

It was handed to them by Donald Trump, who was booed when he appeared and hung about in the picture for a bit before Chelsea\u2019s players pushed in front of him on the podium. Reece James lifted it, fireworks went off and Blue is the Colour went round. They had done it.<\/p>\n

Paris Saint-Germain had seemed peerless, a side that shifted the paradigm, but the European champions<\/a> could not beat Robert S\u00e1nchez at one end \u2013 the goalkeeper one of many outstanding performers \u2013 and were picked off at the other, victims of a perfect plan.<\/p>\n

This hadn\u2019t been what PSG, or anyone, expected and at the final whistle they lost the plot, confrontations sparked on the pitch. Somewhere in the crowd, the coach Luis Enrique seemed to grab at Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s throat just as Jo\u00e3o Neves had grabbed at Marc Cucurella\u2019s hair in the dying minutes of the match, their dreadful afternoon wrapped up with a red card.<\/p>\n

For Chelsea, it could not have gone any better, and almost from the start. Ultimately, they had won this inside 30 minutes, which is what their opponents were supposed to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that they begin games very fast, very strong,\u201d Cucurella had said but while Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 almost caught S\u00e1nchez 95 seconds in, it was Chelsea who did so. The first chance was theirs inside 10 minutes and it was so close that some in this stadium celebrated, Jo\u00e3o Pedro teeing up Palmer for a shot that bent just past the post. That, it turned out was just a sighter; next time, the MetLife could let go for real.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Neves (right) was sent off for pulling Marc Cucurella\u2019s hair Photograph: Jose Breton\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Chelsea\u2019s plan was clear: quick into the challenge, quicker to send the ball into the space behind PSG, starting with S\u00e1nchez directly from his own area. PSG might have led early when D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Dou\u00e9 cut back to Kvaratskhelia instead of taking the shot himself before seeing another effort stopped by a superb low save from S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n

It was also true that they took a degree of control in that phase and beyond, possession eventually up near 70% but Chelsea had anticipated that and the advantage was quickly theirs, 1-0 up on 22 minutes.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez\u2019s diagonal went right where Nuno Mendes, buffeted, didn\u2019t judge the leap well. Suddenly, Malo Gusto was away, space opening on the wing before him and he cut into the area, ready to shoot. Lucas Beraldo blocked the first effort but Gusto retrieved the ball 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.<\/p>\n

The shot with which he made it 2-0 eight minutes later was almost identical. 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 and Palmer put the ball in the same square of the net. In half an hour, he had taken almost the same shot three times. Two had gone in, the other looked like it had, the title within touching distance already.<\/p>\n

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Not that Palmer was finished. Just before half-time, he carried the ball from near halfway and slipped the ball through. The pass was smooth, so was the finish from Jo\u00e3o Pedro, dinked over Gigi Donnarumma as if he was playing on the beach, which 10 days ago he was.<\/p>\n

Chelsea had completed only 126 passes at that point, but that was at least partly by clinical design, producing three shots clearly constructed and calmly executed, giving them a lead that wasn\u2019t for overturning. Which isn\u2019t to say PSG didn\u2019t try after a 24-minute half-time. S\u00e1nchez almost immediately had to get to the feet of Fabi\u00e1n Ruiz and then scramble away Kvaratskhelia\u2019s shot before making an excellent close-range stop from Demb\u00e9l\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Chelsea got deeper and were not always in a hurry to get the ball back. When they did, they tried to keep it, each pass greeted with ol\u00e9s, the match managed expertly. S\u00e1nchez dived to save Vitinha\u2019s dipping effort but only rarely did Chelsea feel under the kind of pressure that would prise the trophy from their hands.<\/p>\n

In fact, if anyone was going to score again, it was Liam Delap, who twice went close, as down the on the bench the T-shirts were handed out. World champions 2025, they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boy from Wythenshawe who had sat on top of the Rockefeller on Friday took Chelsea to the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-63561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114848811285701713","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}