Maresca advances: his Chelsea beat Palmeiras 2-1 and reach the semi-finals against Fluminense
Chelsea beat Palmeiras and join Fluminense in Tuesday's semifinal, who eliminated Al Hilal in the first quarterfinal of the tournament. An intense and spectacular match, with the two teams facing each other openly. The goals, beautiful, of the two stars, Palmer and Estevao, who after the tournament will wear the Blues jersey. The balance was broken a handful of minutes from extra time by an unfortunate double deflection by Giay and Weverton on a cross by Malo Gusto.
Chelsea immediately had a problem, losing their captain James in the warm-up, who was destined to replace the suspended Caicedo in midfield: Andrey Santos took his place. After the first quarter of an hour of studying, with the Brazilians letting off steam a couple of times with Vitor Roque, Palmer took the stage, very inspired. The English international received the ball from Chalobah outside the area, controlled it, penetrated, avoiding Micael's closure and beat Weverton, widening his left foot. In practice, there was only one team on the pitch from this point on. Cucurella tried from outside, the wingers Pedro Neto and Nkunku worked, as did Enzo Fernandez in his classic movement as a midfielder oscillating on the vertical axis. At the half-hour mark, Nkunku missed the second goal, firing a curling shot into the stands from the left, once again fed by Palmer.
Palmeiras got off to a better start in the second half, putting things right after 8 minutes with a crazy play by Estevao, who took the ball on the right, took out Colwill and from a tight angle found an impossible corner, unleashing a ground-to-air shot that hit the crossbar and ended up behind an innocent Sanchez. Maresca's moves were to bring on new signing Joao Pedro for a dull Delap and Madueke for Nkunku. The match was now beautiful, tactics reduced to a minimum with the teams stretched out in search of an advantage. Ferreira also changed two of the three attacking midfielders, bringing in Mauricio and Paulinho, both technical and quick to exploit a possible physical decline by the Blues. The move worked, after half an hour only a block by Colwill denied the Brazilian advantage on a combination of the two new arrivals. The impression was that the match could be decided at any moment. Indeed, Chelsea were the ones to celebrate in the 38th minute, thanks to a double and unfortunate deflection on a cross from Malo Gusto, first by Giay and then by goalkeeper Weverton, who was credited with the own goal that allowed Chelsea to go to the semi-final.
La Gazzetta dello Sport
