Figure 1 There has been improvement but will the season end up being a success? - Source: Unsplash

Favourable Club World Cup draw could spell trouble for Chelsea in August

By SuperFrank - 28th Jun 2025, 12:35pm

The Club World Cup has been a very interesting addition to the calendar.

Usually at this time of year we’re desperately short of club football action, with the rest of June and the whole of July stretching ahead of us before serious football kicks off again. We’d be waiting even just for a friendly or two in a few weeks to keep us occupied.

This year it’s the other way round – last season has effectively continued with the big tournament in the USA, which reaches the knockout stages this weekend. But the time it’s all over it will be late July, and then it will be just a few weeks before we’re making this weekend’s premier league predictions.

The longer Chelsea stay in the tournament, the less gap we have before the start of the season. That’s great for us from an entertainment point of view, but not so good from a player welfare point of view. Next season could be a record breaker for top clubs in terms of injuries, and the Club World Cup would be the first thing that everyone looks at in terms of blame.

Enzo Maresca has so far taken an interesting approach to rotation. He played a very strong team in both the first and second games, with just a few tweaks. He then made major changes for the game against ES Tunis on Tuesday night, and got a 3-0 win.

On Saturday we face Benfica in the second round, and we expect our first to be restored. The problem is that after that, it gets really serious, and almost impossible to rest players. Someone like Moises Caicedo (who got a break in our last game) will likely play on Saturday, and if we win will then play the quarter final, then maybe the semi final and the final.

That would mean he plays a final tally of 6 games in the tournament should we go all the way. That’s a serious extra burden to put on his body, especially considering the increasing intensity of these fixtures and the extreme heat many of them are being played in.

Many of the players like Caicedo and Marc Cucurella, who played the most minutes last season and have featured a lot here, will have to take a major break after this competition, and then will need to ramp up their fitness in August.

There’s a good chance they actually aren’t fit for the start of the Premier League season, needing to ramp back up to match fitness after a much needed few weeks off in July.

We can therefore expect Chelsea to make a slow start to the season in the league – handing further advantage to Liverpool and Arsenal, who have been resting all this time. That could create another thrilling chase for the Champions League, much like the one we had last year. Although without the strong start we made a year ago, things might not turn out as well for us in the end.

First things first: let’s win the Club World Cup.