The script had been written. The author was Parisian. Paris Saint-Germain would conquer the first FIFA Club World Cup™. One of their galactic geniuses, Achraf Hakimi, Vitinha, Desire Doue, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or Ousmane Dembele, would headline their jour de gloire.
That story was, however, shredded to smithereens inside MetLife Stadium in New York New Jersey. PSG, who had thumped Internazionale Milano 5-0 in the recent UEFA Champions League final, and given Atlético de Madrid and Real Madrid C.F. 4-0 hidings in the States, were themselves the victims of a beating.
It was handed out by Chelsea FC. It was headlined by Cole Palmer. The 23-year-old broke the deadlock with a composed finish. Then he charged on to a Levi Colwill ball over the top, flashed a dummy, sold Vitinha a dummy and buried the ball into the same bottom corner.
Palmer wasn’t done with his first-half demolition job. Just before the break, he galloped through the midfield and slid a perfectly-weighted pass into the path of Joao Pedro, who dinked it over Gianluigi Donnarumma to make it 3-0. That’s how it finished.
“It was incredible,” Liam Delap told FIFA of Palmer’s performance. “He’s a world-class player and today he showed that.”
“Cole Palmer is the best in the world,” goalkeeper Robert Sanchez told FIFA. “If he’s not the best now, he’s going to be in the next two to three years.
“He’s a top player. He shows it in all the matches. What he does is magic. When he gets chances, he takes them. Today he scored two goals, almost a hat-trick. Impressive.”
Palmer, as Malo Gusto explains, prefers to do his talking on the pitch.
“He’s always a bit on his own, a bit reserved,” said the France right-back. “But he’s a very good person. He knows when to speak up. He also knows how to be funny to help the team relax a bit. We all have a very good relationship. We’re really happy to have this kind of player.
“Everyone knows Cole now. Everyone knew him before. He’s a top player, like many others in this team. He did a lot for us tonight.”
Palmer seized the Michelob Ultra Superior Player of the Match and Player of the Tournament awards. He preferred to pass praise to his manager Enzo Maresca.
“Obviously everyone was doubting us,” Palmer told FIFA. “We didn’t mind, we just used that as extra motivation and we worked through the trouble out there. I thought we were spot on today, especially the gaffer. We had a good game plan and we executed it.”
Sanchez believes PSG had written Cheslea off going into the game.
“It looked like it, no?” said the Spain international. “From everything we read and saw in interviews, the truth is that they did. They have had a very good season, but they hadn’t faced us.
“PSG have a lot of quality, they play with a lot of intensity, energy, but for me we have much more quality. I told my team-mates that we have more energy than them, more intensity than them, that we are going to win the game. And that is what they did. We got in their face from the first minute and when we got chances, it was goal, goal.
“What a final. We put in a lot of effort in this tournament, so we deserved it. I’m very happy, delighted that we played a great match, were able to score goals. We could have scored more.”
Delap was in agreement about people writing off Chelsea: “Obviously there was a lot of talk before the game, but we had the confidence and belief. We knew if we executed the game plan we’d win. We showed that.
“Every man on the pitch had their role. We had to be hungry and fight for every ball and every challenge, be clinical when we needed to. We did that. I think it’s a really special group and I think we can go on to do great things.”
