Stupid, exercised, wasted Chelsea. More money than Scrooge McDuck. Less meaning than his cousin, Donald. They sign children, give them up, give them lifelong sentences – sorry, contracts – and think it will succeed. How misled.
That was the story, not in the least after their Carabao Cup defeat from Liverpool from 2024 when Schadenfreude was barely scarce towards the billionaire Bottelaars in blue.
They were mocked as a waste, charlatans responsible for a day care center, nowhere near the winners they were crying as fans in their failure.
Win on Sunday evening in the final of the Club World Cup, and after all interrogation of their approach, Chelsea would be within their right to ask for a certain of them. That's: who laughs now?
They finished fourth with the youngest team in the 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 confrontation-Hun 64th match of a debilitating 2024-25 season with Paris Saint-Germain and are already guaranteed to go home more than £ 80 million as far as in the United States.
In March, a UEFA report had the Chelsea team, because the most expensive ever assembled at an amount of £ 1.39 billion. Now they are a single victory of it possible to force their rivals – and their fans – to reconsider whether respect for them and their strategy must be shown.
Certainly they would be harder to ridiculing with a shiny FIFA sticker on their shirts for the next four years and confirm that they are the world champions.
Luis Enrique's PSG is a Swashbuckling young side. Their can look like football from another planet, as Real Madrid discovered when losing 4-0 in the semi-final. The Parisians have already conquered Europe and now they want the world.
They are the favorites from outside, but that image is not shared in Chelsea. As a senior employee said to Mail Sport on Saturday: “Nobody thought we would also win in 2021.”
That refers to the Champions League final against Manchester City-a 1-0 win that earned them their invitation for this inaugural club World Cup with 32 teams.
In many ways, Marc Cucurella embodies how perceptions can change so extremely.
We met him this week in the five -star hotel of Chelsea, the peninsula, on the way of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
The left side of Chelsea was not exhausted, even though it played for 4,910 minutes for Club en Land last season alone. Nor was he nervous before he was confronted with Ousmane Dembele, Douse Doue and PSG's army of attackers.
Instead, we found him giggling in the lobby, especially after we had asked the £ 55 million signing of Brighton how he was booed from his own fans because he was so bad to continue estimating by opposing fans that he was so good.
“They don't leave me alone, nobody, never!” Cucurella said of rival supporters, laughing. “But it's good. I know when they do this, it's because they start 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 had a good season. We wanted the Champions League and we did it. We have won the Conference League. This is a different step for us. '
This week Dembele and Cole Palmer took part in a FIFA photo shoot on top of the Rockefeller Center in New York. Mail Sport was told by someone present that neither would touch it, not Willot to seduce fate. Chances are that one of them will decide who will eventually get it.
Cucurella calls Dembele as the toughest opponent he has ever confronted, although the Spaniard has twice stopped the 28-year favorite for the next balloon d'Or scoring when he was on his territory on the right wing of France. The first time was in the semi-final of the Euro 2024, won 2-1 by Spain.
The second time was in the Nations League-Finale-A 5-4 victory from which there is a photo of Cucurella that screams down to a stated dembele like Muhammad Ali who is about Sonny Liston.
Dembele will be worth seeing when Chelsea takes one of their short goal kicks. His posture will be similar to a sprinter who likes to eat his 100 meters, prepared to chase that ball as if it is the last one left on the planet.
But Chelsea will not tear their plan forward from behind, because PSG are the most wild pressers in football. They have their approach and will stick to it, just as they have done off the field while they are mocked by everyone with a social media account.
If Chelsea PSG can overcome on Sunday evening, this will not only be the Club World Cup trophy that they cancel at the Metlife Stadium in New Jersey. It will be two fingers for everyone who spotted their strategy.