Match day thread for group match 3 vs Esperance at the Lincon Financial Field, Philadelphia.

Late one for a lot of folk!

12 minutes ago, Mod said:

Late one for a lot of folk!

Yes too late for me that one.

I shall instead join the thread meltdown at about 7 a.m. LOL

Am I going to stay up to watch this load of dossers play football midweek? Probably.

Fully expecting the same team.

Think he'll pick :

Sanchez ; James, Adarabioyo, Colwill, Cucurella ; Caicedo, Fernandez ; Neto, Palmer, Madueke ; Delap

I'd love to see a start for Andrey Santos but can't see it happening ...

I believe Caicedo will be on the bench because of that yellow card. Since it looks like we'll be facing Bayern next (if we do qualify), if Caicedo gets another yellow he's banned for that game.

We'll finally get to see Santos, but Maresca will find a way to f**k that up.

3 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Think he'll pick :

Sanchez ; James, Adarabioyo, Colwill, Cucurella ; Caicedo, Fernandez ; Neto, Palmer, Madueke ; Delap

I'd love to see a start for Andrey Santos but can't see it happening ...

I agree and I think it will be the catalyst for Santos to get himself a move to a properly ambitious club.

If this happens it surely has to be a wake up call to the hopelessly positive amongst us that this "project" of identifying and developing the best young talent in the world, is a complete fallacy being perpetrated by these w*nkers.

Let's overlook the generational talents of Angelo Gabriel and Diego Morreira that have both disappeared into the ether no sooner than their social media "dream move" posts were replaced with the latest batch. Let's give the benefit of the doubt at the moment that maybe the same fate doesn't await Washington or Anselmino.

But of them all, Santos was the original poster boy. The original kid prodigy, breaking into the full Brazilian squad.

Fck this up Clearlake and you'll be truly shown up for the w*nkers you are and no, Estevao won't last here, nor will Paez. And pretty soon it will cotton on to these kids that there are half a dozen other clubs in this division that can offer a hell of a lot more than these clowns

Edited June 22, 20251 yr by WhiteWall

Imagine losing this one and crashing out.

Not beyond the realm of possibilities either...

Enzo confirmed he will rotate here. So maybe we'll see the likes of Santos play.

Anyway I don't think this will be easy at all. Gladly draw will suffice.

The temperature will be around 40 or so and Tunis is no pushover.

Hoping for Delaps debut goal

I wouldn't be too bothered if we crashed out. It gives the players a longer break, and avoids increasing Maresca's brownie points in the eyes of the owners. It's also a such a soulless, artificial tournament.

We need a draw or win to progress, not against a team like Forest or even a R Betis but a 2 bob Tunisian pub team, yet still I'm not 100% convinced well make the KOs

On here in LA at a very sensible 6pm !

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jun/23/enzo-maresca-chelsea-philadelphia-club-world-cup-heatwave-usa

I've just realised that if we win this, we will in all likelihood play Bayern Munich in the last 16

🫣

8 hours ago, General said:

We need a draw or win to progress, not against a team like Forest or even a R Betis but a 2 bob Tunisian pub team, yet still I'm not 100% convinced well make the KOs

On here in LA at a very sensible 6pm !

I just checked this list of world club rankings https://iffhs.com/posts/4365. There Flamengo is 14., Chelsea is 17., ES Tunis is 185. and LA FC is 194....so according to that ranking this table is spot on. Only chance of anomaly would come if we lost to Tunis. Anyway...Not sure if people look at these, trust them or find any use of them but it seems to go as planned 😄

Edited June 24, 20251 yr by evissy

7 hours ago, carrickblue said:

I've just realised that if we win this, we will in all likelihood play Bayern Munich in the last 16

🫣

I am fine with facing Bayern. We are massive underdogs there and we haven't really been able to win a truly top side in this Boehly era so this is another chance. Win the game and the young side will get a massive boost for the season ahead. Losing to a lower side is much worse IMO.

Beat Bayern and we might face Estevao. Would be epic.

Might be the only time he ever appears on the same pitch as the rest of the Chelsea players.

7 minutes ago, evissy said:

Beat Bayern and we might face Estevao. Would be epic.

If Juventus win or draw vs City it would also move City to the opposite side and the Semifinals would be against Juventus/Inter/Dortmund/River.

The opposite side would potentially have two of City/Paris/Real Madrid in the Semifinals.

Edited June 24, 20251 yr by petre ispirescu

2 hours ago, evissy said:

I just checked this list of world club rankings https://iffhs.com/posts/4365. There Flamengo is 14., Chelsea is 17., ES Tunis is 185. and LA FC is 194....so according to that ranking this table is spot on. Only chance of anomaly would come if we lost to Tunis. Anyway...Not sure if people look at these, trust them or find any use of them but it seems to go as planned 😄

I'd ignore that ranking list if I was you.

Criteria to compile it must be highly suspect if they have Manchester City all the way down in 19th, one place behind the mighty Lazio, who just finished 7th in Serie A for the 2nd season in a row, and only one place ahead of Manchester United ffs LOL. And Arsenal 4th ? Ahead of Liverpool in 5th ? Deary me LOL

Edited June 24, 20251 yr by Sexyfootball

Perfectly happy to exit the tournament ASAP. Not going to win it, conditions border on life-threatening. Get the lads home for a rest. I can't imagine Atletico are shedding too many tears.

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

I'd ignore that ranking list if I was you.

Criteria to compile it must be highly suspect if they have Manchester City all the way down in 19th, one place behind the mighty Lazio, who just finished 7th in Serie A for the 2nd season in a row, and only one place ahead of Manchester United ffs LOL. And Arsenal 4th ? Ahead of Liverpool in 5th ? Deary me LOL

Well you need to see on how the points accumulate. That has to be taken into consideration.

We are also in this CWC comp after winning the CL 2021 and something pretty major has happened since to the club.

BUT the rankings are not complete waste of time. The clubs are probably thereabouts. Tunis and LA are thereabouts so you can correlate their on pitch performance/level to see are we going to be the clear favourite or is there a match there. Auckland was around 5000. so that was pretty accurate.

I am pretty sure most English footballing people/media completely dismissed how good Flamengo is or Botafogo are. Just that dismissive idea, we are from England and millions this, millions that, most expensive squad and so on blah blah blah.. football is still played on the pitch. One good thing about this tournament is we actually have to face top South American sides to measure us against them. Looks like they are both alright and pretty excited to face European sides.

14 hours ago, evissy said:

Anyway I don't think this will be easy at all. Gladly draw will suffice.

There's absolutely no way this account isn't satire

17 minutes ago, evissy said:

Well you need to see on how the points accumulate. That has to be taken into consideration.

We are also in this CWC comp after winning the CL 2021 and something pretty major has happened since to the club.

BUT the rankings are not complete waste of time. The clubs are probably thereabouts. Tunis and LA are thereabouts so you can correlate their on pitch performance/level to see are we going to be the clear favourite or is there a match there. Auckland was around 5000. so that was pretty accurate.

I am pretty sure most English footballing people/media completely dismissed how good Flamengo is or Botafogo are. Just that dismissive idea, we are from England and millions this, millions that, most expensive squad and so on blah blah blah.. football is still played on the pitch. One good thing about this tournament is we actually have to face top South American sides to measure us against them. Looks like they are both alright and pretty excited to face European sides.

It purports to be a ranking list from 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025, and it has Arsenal 4th (!!!) ahead of Liverpool, Bayern, PSG, Man City. And it has Man United as 20th best team in the world when they are barely hanging on to be in the best 20 in England LOL

If those aren't big enough red flags for you Evissy then I don't know what to say !

You're banging a drum for the top Brazilian sides (fair enough) and yet this mob even have Aston Villa ahead of them LOL

Villa 12th, Man City 19th btw ...

Travelling down to Glasto tonight so will be streaming the game on my phone if i get signal.

Hopefully:

Petrovic

Azpi T.Silva Colwill Cucurella

Santos RLC

Palmer Mata Neto

Crespo