PHILADELPHIA — It’s never easy to make sense of Chelsea, a club that doesn’t do “normal,” so why should it be any different when they seal a place in the FIFA Club World Cup semifinals with an own goal by a Palmeiras player and their new wonderkid Estêvão scoring against them?
Chelsea’s 2-1 win against Palmeiras, which earned them £15 million in prize money, also happened to come on the day that the Premier League team was hit with a £27 million fine by UEFA for breaching financial regulations. If Enzo Maresca’s side beats Fluminense in Tuesday’s semifinal in East Rutherford, New Jersey, it will bank another £21.8 million and wipe out the UEFA sanction before the ink has even dried on the rap sheet.
Chelsea will go into their last-four encounter as strong favorites even without center forward Liam Delap and defender Levi Colwill, who both picked up yellow cards against Palmeiras that mean they will be suspended for the next game. Midfielder Moisés Caicedo will return from suspension, and new signing Joao Pedro, who made his debut in Philadelphia as a substitute just three days after completing a transfer from Brighton worth an initial £50 million, will replace Delap.
That’s how it works at Chelsea. They have so many players that no injury or suspension seems to make a difference, because the carousel just turns and another player steps off to fill the void.
Estêvão will be the next one to join Maresca’s ever-growing squad. The 18-year-old completed a £33.8 million transfer from Palmeiras in June 2024, but at age 17 at the time was too young to make the move directly to Stamford Bridge, so he remained in Brazil to continue his development with Palmeiras. Chelsea could have called Estêvão into their squad for this tournament this month but decided to allow the teenager to remain with Palmeiras and assess his readiness for Maresca’s squad by monitoring his performances in the competition.
There was always a chance the two clubs would meet and pose a difficult scenario for the player, but in what turned out to be his final game for the Sao Paulo team before heading to Chelsea, Estêvão dazzled and scored a stunning goal that will hugely excite his new club’s supporters. With Chelsea leading 1-0 after a first-half Cole Palmer goal, Palmeiras struggled to land a blow on the English team until Estêvão raced onto a ball into the penalty area and beat Colwill to it before scoring with a right-footed strike that went in off the underside of the crossbar. It was a goal that showcased audacity, confidence and supreme skill, and it sparked Palmeiras into a period that could have, and maybe should have, delivered a second goal to put them in the lead.
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Estêvão was part of that revival, tormenting the Chelsea back line with his blistering pace and linking well with impressive No. 9 Vitor Roque. But the Brazilian team was unable to make its dominance pay, and Chelsea fortuitously regained the lead on 83 minutes when Malo Gusto’s cross was diverted into the net after two deflections, off Agustin Giay and goalkeeper Weverton. It was a goal worth £15 million in prize money, so it probably deserved to be a little more spectacular, but Chelsea won’t mind how it went in because it secured a place in the semis.
How Chelsea have made it this far is down to luck rather than good planning. Maresca’s team was mediocre during the group stage, when it was comfortably beaten by Flamengo, but reached the quarterfinal after a farcical round-of-16 tie against Benfica in Charlotte that was hit by a two-hour weather delay and saw the Portuguese side create chances to win the game. But despite it all, including the off-field noise that often accompanies the club, Chelsea have made it to the semis, and they will face arguably the weakest of the four Brazilian teams — Botafogo being the other in contention — in Fluminense, who overcame Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal in the quarterfinals.
Less than two months ago, Chelsea were facing a failure to qualify for the Champions League and the prospect of their £1 billion spending spree amounting to little more than a Conference League success. But all of a sudden, they are 90 minutes away from the Club World Cup final, having already bagged Champions League qualification and the Conference League.
Just don’t try to make sense of it all, because this is Chelsea, and chaos seems to be the driving force behind the club and Maresca’s team.
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