Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea fired their way to the Club World Cup final with a 2-0 victory over Fluminense. Joao Pedro was the hero, bagging a brace on his full debut.
Fluminense were Chelsea’s third Brazilian opponents of the tournament, with the Blues having lost to Flamengo and beaten Palmeiras.
Chelsea held 54% possession in the match, taking 17 shots and creating three big chances. Meanwhile, Fluminense only managed 12 shots, creating one big chance from their 46% share of possession.
The entire team dug deep to fight their way to the Club World Cup final, but one man in particular stole the headlines by bagging a brace against his former club.
Chelsea fans have been begging for a clinical centre-forward for a long time, with Nicolas Jackson spurning some big chances last campaign.
And it didn’t take long for Pedro to win the fans over, netting two goals on his full debut, taking just three shots and having a shot accuracy of 66.7%.
The Brazilian also worked hard off the ball, winning two of his five ground duels and contesting four aerial duels.
Pedro has already shown he is a perfect fit for Maresca’s system. He is able to hold up play when asked due to his build, but also has the technical efficiency to drop deep and link play with his teammates, creating the overload in deeper zones.
Maresca now has a bit of a selection headache in the striker department, with Liam Delap back in contention for the final, Pedro ready to go again and Jackson likely knocking on the door too.
Maresca has also started to show his hand with his tactics ahead of the new season, slowly implementing more fluidity across zones for his players.
Last season, the Italian coach was often brandished as “stubborn”, playing in a rigid positional system with an inverted full-back, shaping up in a 3-2-5 on the ball.
However, now that the foundations have been laid in Maresca’s first season, the players have a good understanding of the demands for each and every zone of the pitch.
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This has allowed for more positional fluidity among the players, with the full-backs, central midfielders and even forwards rotating positions to disrupt the opposition pressing scheme.
We saw this on both sides of the pitch, with both Marc Cucurella and Malo Gusto able to operate on the inside and outside, along with all the midfielders being able to operate at all possible depths.
Cucurella is the perfect player for this next evolution under Maresca, due to his tactical understanding and positional versatility.
The 26-year-old often played as an inverted full-back last season, either joining Moises Caicedo in the double pivot on the ball, or becoming the left centre-back in a back three.
But Cucurella is also able to invert higher up as a No.10, something we also saw at times last season. He can even hold the width on the left, even if it isn’t his best role.
This allowed Enzo Fernandez to drop into the left centre-back position on the ball at times, with Cucurella moving forwards to replace the Argentine in the half space further forward.
The rotations weren’t only on the left either, with the trio of Cole Palmer, Christopher Nkunku and Malo Gusto interchanging on that right side.
Much like with Cucurella, the positional versatility of Gusto to operate inside and outside allows for Palmer and Nkunku to have more positional freedom with their movement.
Maresca’s side have definitely shown the fluidity they are looking at add next season, especially when facing five at the back teams, setting up in a 3-1-6 and allowing players to replace across zones.
Whether this integration of zone replacement is as heavy against back four sides, remains to be fully seen, but evidence is starting to suggest Maresca’s second season will have many new coaching details to watch out for!