Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca fumes after two-hour Club World Cup weather delay – ‘It’s a joke! It’s NOT football!’ | Football News
Enzo Maresca smoked after the Chelsea World Cup match against Benfica took almost five hours to finish due to a weather delay, describing the situation as “a joke” and “no football”.
The Premier League team finally missed winners 4-1 after the extension in the last draw in Charlotte, who was suspended for almost two hours due to a thunderstorm.
Chelsea was only four minutes from the victory after the superb free kick of Reece James when the players were withdrawn from the field and the fans were invited to leave the seats bowl at the Bank of America stadium.
The players were photographed to make exercise bikes and kicks in the locker room during the forced break, but, when the game finally resumed, Benfica benefited from the break and a forced extension with a controversial penalty Angel Di Maria.
The game fell in favor of Chelsea after the Portuguese giants had Gianluca Prestianni and Christopher Nkunku sent them a decisive lead. Pedro Neto and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall Breakaway goals won the victory.
Chelsea celebrates the goal of Christopher Nkunku
The storms have now caused six games to be suspended, all held in different cities, to suspend during the tournament and Maresca suggests that the United States was not the right place to host the competition.
“For 85 minutes, we checked the match,” said Maresca.
“After the break, the match has changed completely. For me, it’s not football. It is already seven, eight, nine games that they suspended.
“I think it’s a joke to be honest, it’s not football. It’s not for us. You can’t be inside. I can find it that I can understand that for security reasons, you suspend the game. But if you suspend seven, eight games, it probably means that it probably means that [this] is not the right place to do this contest. “”
The players leave the field for the meteorological delay
During the break, he added: “This is a joke. That is why I said it. If they have already suspended six games, there is probably something that does not work. I’m not here to decide the rule. I am nobody to decide the rule. I am the last. I speak as a manager. As a manager, it is difficult to manage two hours suspended.
“There is a problem for me personally. But I’m not talking – I speak as a manager. Because when you are two o’clock inside and try to keep them in the game, but for two hours, they speak with the family outside for security reasons.
“They eat something, they play, they laugh. How can you keep them two hours inside, concentrated? Then, we are happy. We are happy to be here. We are happy to be in this competition. But it is not normal.”
Maresca suggested that the United States was not the right place to welcome the club World Cup
Despite the difficult circumstances, Maresca was proud of his team for their extraordinary victory and affected by the weather to reach the quarter -finals of the Club World Cup, where they will now be confronted Brazilian Palmeiras.
Maresca said Dazn: “I am very proud. The performance for me was in the lead until the last five minutes when they stopped the match, and when we restarted [it was] A completely different game.
“When you are inside for more than an hour, it’s not easy but, 1-1, we continued to play and, in the end, I think the reward was the one we deserve.”
“We are in the last eight teams here in this competition and we are very happy.”
Who then plays Chelsea?
Chélat will face the Brazilian team Palmeiras In the last eight, start at 2 a.m. on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
