The inaugural staging of the revamped FIFA Club World Cup comes to a close on Sunday when two European trophy winners from the past season collide at MetLife Stadium in New York when Chelsea go up against Paris Saint-Germain.
That means we have the Europa Conference League winners up against the Champions League champions so one of these two teams are going to end an incredibly long season with a second significant piece of silverware.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on Channel 5 and the DAZN app with the extended build-up beginning at 6.30pm ahead of the 8pm kick off UK time.
Chelsea
I don’t think there would have been too many judges who would have had Chelsea making the final of this tournament when the competition got underway. They are moving in the right direction under Enzo Maresca but there were some powerful teams on show in this event, however the draw soon opened up for the Blues and to their credit they have taken full advantage of it to take their place in this final. It is fair to say that they will need their best showing of the tournament here if they are going to win this final though.
In many ways, judging Chelsea in the tournament isn’t that easy because they haven’t really faced any of the true heavyweights. Their knockout passage has been a Benfica side who lost the plot, Palmeiras and Fluminense. The first two of those did give the Blues a few headaches though but going the other way Chelsea have been pretty clinical and that bodes well for them here. You wouldn’t think that chances are going to come regularly here so the ones that they can make use off will help them out.
Paris Saint-Germain
The European champions Paris Saint-Germain have continued where they left off in the Champions League in this tournament. They have already battered Atletico Madrid, Inter Miami and Real Madrid in the competition and also seen off the Seattle Sounders and Bayern Munich with relative ease too. The only issue they had was when they took on Botafogo in their middle group game. They lost it but they had already done the damage in their opening game and rotated a number of players against the Brazilians.
The attacking play of the Parisians has continued to catch the eye in this tournament but in a weird way, so dazzling is the attacking, their excellent defensive work has been masked. In those three matches they have given up a total xG of 1.66 so they are not giving chances away and it is hard to see that changing when you consider that on paper Chelsea offer nothing like the threats that Bayern Munich and Real Madrid do. A repeat of those performances will make PSG very hard to beat.
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Team News
Chelsea will be able to call upon the services of Liam Delap and Levi Colwill after they were suspended for the semi-final. Joao Pedro scored both goals in the win over Fluminense so Delap might have to make do with a place on the bench.
Paris Saint-Germain are without a couple of players with key defender William Pacho and Lucas Hernandez still serving suspensions after their quarter final red cards against Bayern Munich. They picked up no new injuries in the semi-final so Luis Enrique is expected to name an unchanged side.
Betting
I just don’t see a way that Chelsea win this match. Much better teams than them have been unable to contain this Paris Saint-Germain side and there is no evidence that the Blues will be able to do it. If we take out the Botafogo match because Luis Enrique rotated his stock, PSG have scored at least twice in every match in this competition and they are yet to let a goal in. They have been every bit as dominant as their results have suggested.
The problem Chelsea have got here is if you commit men forward PSG can pick you off from all angles and if you sit back and contain they have too many options that they’ll get through at some point. PSG look a big price at 1.75 in this match and I wouldn’t put anyone off taking that price but I think we can get involved in some handicaps here. -1.5 is 2/1 which feels big when all five PSG wins have covered that line and you can get 5/1 on -2.5 landing. It did so against both Madrid sides and Inter Miami. We saw in the Champions League final that this side aren’t interested in 1-0 wins and playing out time. They want to entertain and we saw against Bayern that if they are only 1-0 up they will go for a second last on and rubber stamp a win. I’ll take the handicap option here.
Tips
Back Paris Saint-Germain (-1) to beat Chelsea for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Betfred
Back Paris Saint-Germain (-2) to beat Chelsea for a 1/10 stake at 6.00 with Betfred
