Chelsea will take on Paris Saint-Germain in the final of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, USA tonight.
The game will get underway at 12:30 a.m. Sri Lanka time.
Chelsea must somehow try to stop an in-form Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) side from adding the FIFA Club World Cup trophy to their UEFA Champions League title as the final of the first edition of FIFA’s expanded competition takes place later today.
PSG travelled to the United States fresh from becoming European champions with a stunning 5-0 demolition of Inter Milan in Munich in late May, and they have lived up to their favorites tag at the Club World Cup.
Luis Enrique’s side put four goals past Atletico Madrid in the group stage, four more past Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami in the last 16, and then proved too strong for Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals.
They appeared to hit new heights as they tore apart Kylian Mbappe’s Real Madrid in the last four, when their 4-0 winning margin could have been far greater.
The Parisians now stand on the verge of an extraordinary achievement, as they look to complete a clean sweep of trophies in this marathon 2024-25 season and add the world title to their French and European crowns.
“That is the objective we have had since the beginning but it is always very difficult to achieve these things – very few teams can do what we are trying to do,” Luis Enrique said after the semifinal.
PSG are therefore overwhelming favorites for the game which will be played at the 82,500-capacity MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
However, Desire Doue, one of their standout performers during a remarkable campaign, insisted there were no concerns about complacency.
“We are not over-confident, not at all,” France international Doue told reporters before PSG trained at Rutgers University in New York City on Friday. “We have been favorites for most matches in this competition and throughout this season, but what matters is what we do on the pitch.”
Chelsea have plenty of reasons to believe too, with the title game finally wrapping up a campaign in which they won the UEFA Conference League and also finished fourth in the Premier League to qualify for the Champions League.
While PSG lost to Botafogo during the group stage, Chelsea were also beaten by Brazilian opposition in Flamengo.
However, they have gone on to defeat Benfica as well as two other Brazilian teams, Palmeiras and Fluminense, to reach the final.
“If everyone thinks we are going to lose, then we have nothing to lose. We have to go out there and play our football, be confident and hopefully try to surprise everyone,” defender Levi Colwill said on Friday.
PSG’s record against English opposition in 2025 shows the size of task facing Chelsea – the French club faced four Premier League teams in the Champions League and beat them all, from Manchester City and Liverpool, to Aston Villa and then Arsenal.
- Agencies
