Silly, spendthrift, squandering Chelsea. More money than Scrooge McDuck. Less sense than his nephew, Donald. They sign kids, stockpile them, hand them life sentences — sorry, contracts — and think it will succeed. How deluded.
That was the narrative, not least after their 2024 Carabao Cup final defeat by Liverpool when schadenfreude was hardly in short supply towards the billionaire bottlers in blue.
They were mocked as wasters, charlatans in charge of a creche, nowhere near the winners they used to be as fans howled at their failure.
Win on Sunday night in the Club World Cup final, however, and after all the questioning of their approach, Chelsea would be within their rights to ask a certain one of their own. That is: who is laughing now?
They finished fourth with the youngest team in Premier League history and a new manager in Enzo Maresca to qualify for the Champions League.
They won the first trophy of their Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital ownership in the Conference League.
They are in this showdown — their 64th game of a gruelling 2024-25 season — with Paris Saint-Germain and already guaranteed to take home more than £80million for getting this far in the United States.
In March, a UEFA report had Chelsea’s squad as the costliest ever assembled to the tune of £1.39billion. Now they are a single victory from potentially forcing their rivals — and their fans — to rethink whether respect should be shown towards them and their strategy.
Certainly they would be tougher to ridicule with a shiny FIFA sticker on their shirts for the next four years confirming they are the world champions.
Luis Enrique’s PSG are a swashbuckling young side. Theirs can resemble football from another planet, as Real Madrid discovered in losing 4-0 in the semi-finals. The Parisians have already conquered Europe and now they want the world.
They are the favourites from the outside, but that view is not shared inside Chelsea. As one senior staff member told Mail Sport on Saturday: ‘Nobody thought we would win in 2021 either.’
That was referring to the Champions League final against Manchester City — a 1-0 victory which earned them their invitation to this inaugural Club World Cup involving 32 teams.
In many ways, Marc Cucurella epitomises how perceptions can change so extremely.
We met him this week at Chelsea’s five-star hotel, the Peninsula, over the road from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Chelsea’s left back was not exhausted despite having played 4,910 minutes for club and country over the last season alone. Neither was he nervous before facing Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue and PSG’s army of attackers.
Rather we found him giggling in the lobby, especially after we asked the £55m signing from Brighton how he went from being booed by his own fans for being so bad to booed by opposing fans for being so good.
‘They don’t leave me alone, no one, never!’ Cucurella said of rival supporters, laughing. ‘But it’s good. I know when they do this, it’s because they’re going to lose the game.
‘A final is a final. We are ready for the game. They have good players but we have good players. It will be a difficult match. It will be 50/50. We will have our chances.
‘We have had a good season. We wanted the Champions League and we did it. We won the Conference League. This is another step for us.’
This week, Dembele and Cole Palmer participated in a FIFA photoshoot on top of the Rockefeller Centre in New York alongside the trophy.
Mail Sport was told by someone present that neither of them would touch it, not wanting to tempt fate. Chances are one of them will decide who eventually gets their hands on it.
Cucurella cites Dembele as the toughest opponent he has ever faced, though the Spaniard has twice stopped the 28-year-old favourite for the next Ballon d’Or from scoring when he was in his territory on France’s right wing. The first time was in the Euro 2024 semi-final, won 2-1 by Spain.
The second time was in the Nations League final — a 5-4 victory from which there is a picture of Cucurella shouting down at a decked Dembele like Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston.
Dembele will be worth watching when Chelsea take one of their short goal kicks. His stance will be similar to a sprinter eager to eat up his 100 metres, primed to chase that ball as if it is the last one left on the planet.
But Chelsea will not rip up their plan to pass from back to front because PSG are the most ferocious pressers in football. They have their approach and will stick to it, much like they have done off the pitch while being mocked by anyone with a social media account.
If Chelsea can overcome PSG on Sunday night, it will not only be the Club World Cup trophy that they lift up at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. It will be two fingers to all those who scoffed at their strategy.
