East Rutherford: Cole Palmer scored two goals and made another when Chelsea surprised Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup final on Sunday, beating the 3-0 European champions before lifting the trophy with the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
The PSG were the favorites after coming to the United States just winning the Champions League and having destroyed Real Madrid 4-0 in the semifinals.
But after being three goals ahead at the beginning of the semifinals, this time the roles were invested when the PSG was 3-0 for the break.
Palmer opened the score in the middle of the first half and hit again to reach two in the half -hour mark, before taking advantage of the passive defense to establish Joao Pedro during the third in 43 minutes.
A bad day was summed up for the PSG when Joao Neves Red was shown after a review of Var to four minutes from the end to pull Marc Cucurella through the hair of the ball.
“Being Club World Cup champion is something we are proud. We are very happy, especially against a PSG team that I consider the best in the world with one of the best managers in the world,” said Chelsea coach, Enzo Maresca, before the winner of the Palmer match.
“These are the games in which we hope Cole appears because it is a great game, a great moment, and once again showed how good it is.”
Before Chelsea could lift the trophy, the tensions spread full time with the players confronted in the field and the coach of Paris, Luis Enrique, raising his arm around Joao Pedro.
“There were many push and push. It was a situation that should obviously have been avoided, but my intention was clearly just trying to separate the players,” said Luis Enrique.
The score was that a few could have predicted, since Chelsea limited what has been a long but memorable season: they are the first winners of the 32 -team clubs that also won the UEFA Conference League and finished fourth in the Premier League.
They will also remove the $ 125 million in prizes, which means that the perspective of a drastically reduced summer break before returning for the next season will surely be worth it.
Meanwhile, for the PSG, financial rewards are similar, but there will be a genuine disappointment by not having added this title to its triumph of the Champions League and the French League and twice the Cup.
However, conquering Europe was always the main objective this season for Luis Enrique’s team, which now has exactly one month to digest this and take a vacation before returning to action in the UEFA Super Cup against Tottenham Hotspur.
Trump Attentive
There was a real occasion of occasion in the Metlife Stadium, with the backdrop of the Manhattan horizon and with Trump’s assistance along with the first lady Melania Trump in a crowd of 81,118.
For the second time in six weeks, the PSG was involved in a final that quickly became a unilateral matter.
The club claimed a historic 5-0 victory over Inter Milan in the Champions League final, but here they were destroyed by Chelsea.
The opening goal came in the 22nd minute when bad taste beat Nuno Mendes on the right before seeing his shot blocked by Lucas Beraldo. The ball returned to taste and spread to Palmer to end in the lower left corner.
Palmer has been Chelsea’s face in advertising fences in the United States during the tournament and was up to its star status by scoring again in half an hour.
Right to the right with the left side of PSG Mendes out of position, Palmer advanced to the box before stroking a low shot in the same corner.
Joao Pedro played a role in the preparation of that goal and the Brazilian, signed during the Brighton tournament, then obtained his name on the score sheet to put the 3-0.
Scorer of both goals against Fluminense in the semifinals, trimmed a shot beyond Gianluigi Donnarumma after being supplied by Palmer.
The PSG had granted a single goal in its previous eight games and never seemed to produce a return, even if Neves headed over the first half of the stop.
The Liam Delap substitute almost obtained a room for Chelsea in the middle of the second half, before Neves was shown red to complete a bad day for the PSG.
