Chelsea’s new tactic brings victory in dramatic match

In a wild and chaotic Club World Cup game, Chelsea beat Benfica 4-1 in extra time. While the match itself was full of drama and even included a weather delay, one good thing for Chelsea’s new manager, Enzo Maresca, is that people were too distracted to question the team’s mistakes. Instead, they noticed something more important, a new strategy that looked promising.

Chelsea now moves on to the stage where they’ll face Brazilian club Palmeiras, and possibly their soon-to-arrive young star, Estevão.

Maresca made a new tactical change in this game, and for most of the match, it helped Chelsea control the play. Even though they missed many chances during normal time and were stopped several times by Benfica’s outstanding goalkeeper, Anatoliy Trubin, Chelsea kept creating good chances to score.

The biggest difference in this match was how Chelsea changed their shape depending on whether they had the ball or not. When they didn’t have the ball, they used their usual 4-2-3-1 formation. Cole Palmer played as a left winger, Enzo Fernandez was in the middle, and Marc Cucurella was the left-back.

But once Chelsea had possession, they shifted into a new system. Reece James, who usually plays right-back, dropped into a back-three as a right centre-back. Instead of using Palmer to move the ball through the middle, Chelsea focused on the left side of the pitch. Palmer stayed wide on the left, and Cucurella pushed up very high, often playing almost like a second striker. Together, Palmer and Cucurella created a lot of problems for Benfica’s defence.

This focus on the left side worked well. Cucurella had two shots saved, and Palmer also had a few close chances. Benfica’s right-sided defender, Antonio Silva, was under constant pressure, and he didn’t get much help from his teammate Fredrik Aursnes.

In the second half, Chelsea tried using the right side of the field a bit more, but their best chances still came from the left. That’s also where their first goal came from, although it was Reece James who scored it with a surprise free-kick that caught the goalkeeper off guard.

However, Chelsea still showed signs that they’re learning how to play with this new system. In one moment, Cucurella passed the ball perfectly to Pedro Neto, who was wide open near the goal, but Neto didn’t react quickly enough and missed the chance. At other times, Enzo Fernandez seemed confused about where to position himself, and the forwards sometimes got in each other’s way.

Late in the game, Maresca made some changes. Palmer moved to play as a striker, and Christopher Nkunku came on to take his place on the left wing.

Then, just as things were getting exciting, lightning near the stadium in Charlotte stopped the game. The delay lasted nearly two hours, and the match ended up taking almost five hours in total. Because of that, most of the post-match talk focused on the storm, not the game.

Still, what happened on the field mattered. Last season, Chelsea had too many players and no clear starting group, which made it hard to find consistency. But this new system might show that Maresca is starting to form a clear plan. If he sticks to it and the players keep improving, this could be a strong step forward for Chelsea.