Re-up on the line | Chelsea advances to the final as they wish, they need to win the championship to hedge the risks on the road ahead

Although he has entered the semi-finals and his opponent is Fluminense, Maresca still seems uneasy.

At the pre-match press conference, Maresca still emphasized that Chelsea had many difficulties. He had no rest after playing more than 60 games. He lacked confidence in entering the finals, so his mentality of paving the way forward was actually very clear: if you win the game, it would be the result of the team overcoming difficulties together; if you lose the game, it would be "I have said it a long time ago, there are really many difficulties."

Unfortunately, he was directly undermined by a reporter at the press conference and was told that Fluminense played more games than Chelsea in the same period, so he had to fall into an awkward silence.

has a heavy schedule with the Brazilian team, and Maresca obviously chose the wrong target. So, sometimes you can't just criticize the fans of European teams for not understanding the characteristics and situation of South American teams. Even professionals and Chelsea coaches who are about to play against Fluminense are not aware of it. The cognitive gap in football between Europe and South America is actually really big.

This is the case outside the court, and it is also the case on the court.

has arrived in the semi-finals, and Chelsea has a great advantage.

is not only intuitively reflected in the most obvious value level, but also points to the endurance of continuous combat. In terms of schedule, Chelsea is at least not at a loss. Although it is affected by the suspension of Drapp and Colewell, Chelsea also added Pedro during the event. Today, they started the center directly, and the personnel advantages will be even greater.

On Fluminense's side, head coach Gojo obviously also knows the difficulty of the game, so he not only chose the three-guard system in terms of formation, but also chose to implement a high-intensity man-to-man strategy in defense:

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So in terms of game planning, Gao Qiao's team still has its own ideas. At least at the beginning, it has greatly limited Chelsea's offensive efficiency:

} This is what we mentioned in the last game. Joao Pedro is still at the left winger. Although he has played center in Brighton, he has performed relatively well, and he has Virbeck assisted by his side.

Essentially, he is a second striker, so when Maresca is difficult to have the idea of ​​a double striker, playing to the wing is the only feasible option. Here, he can appear in the second-tier position and have the opportunity to switch to the ribs to play his technical characteristics.

Back to this game, after conceding the ball, Fluminense consciously increased the intensity, but did not start to take a gamble. After all, the game is still long, and rash effort in the off-ball stage may lead to himself getting closer to conceding the second goal.

However, when there was a ball, the running range of Fluminense at each point was obviously increased. So in the 23rd minute, they finally created the inherent problem of Chelsea when pressing without the ball, that is, the space on Kesedo's side would be exposed:

Fluminense created space this time, but failed to use this space to speed up, and did not even advance to the frontcourt smoothly. This is a reflection of their lack of ability.

So from this perspective, we can also see that Chelsea has really good luck in this Club World Cup. In fact, their own problems are on the table, but their opponents are average in strength and their capture efficiency is not high, especially as they reach the later stage of the game, their opponents' performance is getting lower and lower. This also explains why Flamengo can reverse Chelsea in the group stage, but in the knockout stage, it is difficult for Palmeiras and Fluminense to play with their own characteristics. What happened in the 25th minute of

is actually an illustration of this phenomenon. In the 25th minute, Fluminense played their most threatening attack in this game: After the ball was transferred to the left, Nkunku, Gusto and Charoba Jr. were all pulled out by the opponent's movement. Fluminense took advantage of the gap behind them from the midfield. Kesedo came to make up for it, but again, Adarabioyu was penetrated by the opponent's two-for-two, and relied on Kukurelia's goal line to escape.

Combined with Fluminense creating space in the propulsion stage before, it looks like the team is brewing efforts to increase the intensity on both ends of the offense and defense, and strive to equalize the score. However, after 45 seconds of the offense in front of the goal, Chelsea made a rapid advance:

So, this is Fluminense's ability, or, in other words, this is the performance they can provide after they play in Game 6, so it is still difficult to avoid disconnection in front of Chelsea..

In the 33rd minute, Fluminense hit the right rib, but continued the attack through a corner kick that should not belong to them. With continuous crosses and set-piece attacks, he once hit Chaloba's hand. However, after looking back, the referee overturned his penalty:

In this way, Fluminense exerted force within 10 minutes, the shot was cleared, the penalty was blown away by the referee, and their output was basically over.

When returning from the second half, Fluminense, who was behind in the score, did not choose to start the game. Instead, Chelsea gained more advantage in the field after adjustment.

Since Fluminense chose three defenders in the system and chose people to target people in strategy, if Chelsea's midfield and frontcourt does not perform large-scale forward, backward, left and right exchanges, it is actually difficult to effectively break the opponent's defense. This is the main reason why Chelsea did not gain much in positional battles in the first half.

However, in the second half, Chelsea still did not have many midfield and front-field transfers, but they chose to let midfield and backcourt players participate in the offense. For example, the shot of the central defender taking the ball and moving forward began to appear:

, and in the offense, Kessedo and Kukurelia each made long shots:

, such ball and offensive shots have never been seen in the first half. Without large-scale transfers, midfield and backcourt players participate more in the offense. You can think that Chelsea is making efforts.

So, Fluminense needed some adjustments, and Gao Qiao also made adjustments at the center position in the 50-minute interval. It was obvious that he wanted to play a long ball to directly output the pressure. So in the 55th minute, the intention had been transformed into reality:

But in the subsequent defense, Chelsea counterattacked, and Joao Pedro scored the second goal:

Once this goal was scored, the suspense of the game gradually disappeared. After all, after the adjustment, the second goal was lost when the effect just appeared, which was obviously a heavy psychological blow to Fluminense, and the team's morale also collapsed.

Although Fluminense had some opportunities in the next 30 minutes, it did not really threaten the goal. In addition, Maresca made consecutive substitutions, keeping the vitality of the periphery and counterattack high, so there was no chance to create waves for Fluminense.

So, Chelsea entered the finals.

In fact, after winning Palmeiras in the last game, Chelsea is very likely to reach the final, especially if the opponent is Fluminense.

The Brazilian team, or South American team, has its strength characteristics. When competing with European teams in a single game, there is a great chance to create unexpected results through changes in player style and tactics. This is the reason why South American teams, especially the three Brazilian teams, have repeatedly created unpopularity in the group stage.

However, as the schedule continues, in the fifth and sixth games of the competition, the players' hard strength, including the thickness of the lineup, will become the key to whether the team can continue to move forward, so at this time, the Brazilian team will inevitably expose their inherent shortcomings.

Just like Chelsea Fluminense faced today, Nicola Jackson was in poor form and Drapp was suspended from the yellow card, but he showed Joao Pedro who had just been introduced and scored twice in this game. What are you going to do?

So, Chelsea has entered the final, but we still maintain our judgment on Maresca at this stage unless he can give Chelsea an unexpected combat power in the final.

However, as it goes, no matter whether you win the championship or not, or how you perform in the finals, Maresca will be exempted from guilt in the new season. No matter what kind of criticism you suffer, objective reasons will be easily brought out. After 7 games, the preseason schedule was forced to be adjusted. In this summer, when personnel changes are still quite large, there is a lack of familiarity and running-in time on the training ground, including the impact of Kessedo's injury in the Club World Cup. There is no way to know the interference of this event on the team that has reached the end and Chelsea in the new season.

It may be possible that the championship trophy can hedge the risk of not getting a Champions League place in the new season.