Club World Cup final: how Chelsea, PSG compared; Who will win?

It is the final of the FIFA club World Cup on Sunday, and Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea will fight at Metlife Stadium for the honor of becoming the first winner of the tournament at 32 teams.

After a one-month competition in the United States, which has sometimes been overshadowed by low attendance, delays and delays in weather and extreme heat, as well as the pre-turnover concerns of the professional exhaustion of the players, the winners of the UEFA Champions League or the Chelsea Premier League giants will emerge as world champions this weekend.

The PSG of Luis Enrique has already won Ligue 1, the Coupé de France and the Champions League this year, while Chelsea d’Enzo Maresca aims to become the first club to win each major honor, having finished the European whole with its victory of the UEFA conference league in May, raising the Trophy Cup of the club world. So, how will it be played in Metlife and who are the players to watch on Sunday?

Who are the favorites?

PSG is the best undisputed team in the world right now. Their 5-0 final victory of the Champions League against Inter Milan in Munich was the biggest winning margin for a team becoming European champion, and they reached the final of this competition by exploding Real Madrid in a victory in the semi-final 4-0 which could have, and should have ended with a heavier defeat for the Laliga Giantts.

Thus, when you consider that Chelsea obtained qualification in the Champions League via the Premier League only on the last day of the 2024-25 season before winning the conference League, the third level UEFA competition, the two teams are miles on paper. But Maresca’s team has become the competition, and Chelsea is only 90 minutes old to become world champion.

PSG should win, but Chelsea has shown that they knew how to do the work, so this game will be closer than many expectations.

How did PSG come here?

PSG was the exceptional team of the club World Cup, recording victories against European colleagues in Atlético Madrid (4-0), Bayern Munich (2-0) and Real Madrid (4-0) to go to the final. But they were not invincible.

A 1-0 defeat against the champions of Copa Libertadores Botafogo in the group phase has shown that PSG could be beaten, although Luis Enrique being able to indicate that his team being without the star players Oousmane Dembélé, João Neves, Fabián Ruiz and Marquinhos for this game.

The coherent performance of PSG in the Champions League throughout the four-year qualification period for the Club World Cup obtained its place in the tournament, but their final success of the Champions League against Inter Milan in May confirmed their team status to beat in the United States, they were up to this invoicing, and Luis Enrique even had luxury and Khvicha Kvarats, Ruizy Goutout and Khvicha the second half of the victory in the semi-finals against Real to keep his energy for the final.

How did Chelsea get here?

Chelsea needed a victory in his last group match against Tunis sporting esperance to reach the stages with direct elimination after a 3-1 defeat against Flamengo has made its progress in danger. Since reached the 16 -year -old final, Chelsea has been lucky on their side in terms of the benefit of a favorable route to the final.

The surprise defeat of the Bayern group of groups against Benfica meant that Chelsea avoided the Bundesliga giants and would face the Portuguese team in the round of 16. Finally, win 4-1 after an additional time in Charlotte, in North Carolina. Chelsea then beat the Brazilian teams Palmeiras (2-1) and Fluminense (2-0) to ensure a confrontation against PSG in the final.

Chelsea obtained their place as a club World Cup due to the victory of the Champions League in 2021 – the start of the four -year qualification period – but their absence from the European club competition for the last two years highlights how the Stamford Bridge team fau afuFULATED in the tournament by their achievements under another coach and owner group four years ago.

PSG Key Players to watch

Where do you start with PSG? They are a team of exceptional individual talents, but their success lies in all these players arranged and capable of matching their talent with the supreme work rate and the ethics of the team.

Dembélé is the star player of the Luis Enrique team, however, and the French striker is now the clear favorite to win this year’s Golden Ballon. The 28 -year -old scored 35 goals and recorded 14 assists in 52 appearances for PSG this season, and has dissipated all previous doubts about his ability to stay in shape and reach his potential.

He experienced difficult 5 hours and a half seasons in Barcelona after a Borussia Dortmund big money movement in 2018, but since his move to Paris in 2023, Dembélé has lived up to all of media.

Even if Chelsea can stop Dembélé, however, they will then have to stop Kvaratskhelia and gifted on the wings, or in a way master the midfielder of Ruiz, Vitinha and Neves. And then there are the two great-back, Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes, who are the best in the world in their position at the moment.

Chelsea key players to watch

Until two weeks ago, it was Cole Palmer for Chelsea. When the former Manchester City striker plays well, he usually scores and Chelsea tends to win.

But while Palmer, 23, is still the man who can bring the Maresca team to another level, 55 million pounds of summer sterling who signals João Pedro arrived to share the charge with Palmer and give Chelsea a peak advantage. The former striker of Brighton & Hove Albion said that he was “on the beach” in Brazil when the Chelsea agreement had been concluded halfway from the tournament, but he had an immediate impact by marking twice against the old Fluminense team in the semi-finals.

With Chelsea also adding the former striker of the city of Ipswich, Liam Delap, and the former winger of Borussia Dortmund Jamie Gittens to their team this summer, Maresca has a lot of attack options, but the players who could injure PSG are palm and João Pedro.

A key element for Chelsea is the aptitude of the Moist Caicedo midfielder, which has drink from the semi-final with an ankle injury. If it is unfit to face PSG, it will make the stop of their midfield unit almost impossible.

The tactical battle between coaches

PSG of Luis Enrique plays a 4-3-3 formation which is built around their axis of midfielder from Neves, Vitinha and Ruiz. The challenge for Maresca will be how Chelsea can disrupt this midfielder, especially since its training 4-2-3-1 will leave the blues in inferiority in the center of the field.

PSG is so strong in the midfielder that Maresca will almost certainly have to modify his system to be able to compete with European champions. PSG keeps the ball so well that it would be incredibly risky if Maresca sticks to his midfielder – a risk that will be exacerbated if Caicedo fails to overcome his injury.

But it is not only a question of stopping PSG in the midfield. Their attack fronts Hakimi and Mendes, in tandem with the gifted wingers and kvaratskhelia, will make life incredibly difficult for Marc Cucurella and Reece James de Chelsea. Cucurella and James like to attack, but they will have to stay behind to cancel the threat of large PSG.

Why is PSG so good?

Luis Enrique was happy to see Kylian Mbappé leave PSG a year ago, when the attacker passed his contract to join Real Madrid as a free agent. The manager tried and failed to make Mbappé work harder for the team – the failure was probably from Mbappé rather than that of Luis Enrique – so his departure was considered no loss because he allowed the coach to build a team of players who work incredibly hard for the team.

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This is the beauty of this PSG team. They can be fascinating to look with their passage and their dribbling, but everything is built on the solid teamwork foundation.

At halftime in the semi-finals, FIFA produced a statistic which showed that the average recovery time of the Madrid ball was 45 seconds. The PSG number was 23.

In a word, it said everything. The best team in the world worked twice as hard as their opponents. This is why PSG is so good.

How can Gelsea win?

It’s such a difficult challenge for Chelsea. If you had to choose a combined team on both sides, it would be difficult to justify the selection of any Chelsea player before his PSG counterpart.

But football can be, and is often unpredictable, so Chelsea has a chance to punish on Sunday.

If they want to win, they will have to score early, then exceed the Luis Enrique team in each department. They will also have to win the midfielder’s battle.

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The rear errors were a problem for Chelsea, especially in the goals, but they will have to cut all the concentration laps to have the hope of winning the match. Even if they do all of the above, they will always need a moment of genius from Palmer or João Pedro.

It seems almost impossible, right? This is the challenge facing Chelsea, but they still have a chance.

Who will win?

It must be PSG. They are, at a certain distance, the best team in the world at the moment. They could even be the best side since the big team of Barcelona of Pep Guardiola from 2009 to 2011.

In three games against strong European opposition during this tournament, PSG scored 10 goals and did not concedes any, and Chelsea is not as strong as the teams of Atlético, Bayern and Madrid that PSG defeated. Chelsea is a young team led by a young coach, and they are still a work in progress, so it could be a very difficult afternoon on Sunday.

But these are the levels of a final of the Club World Cup, and PSG is in a separate league, so they will win, and they will win comfortably.

Score score: 3-0