The secrets of Chelsea’s Club World Cup success: Enzo Maresca’s tactics bunker, Cole Palmer’s cousin and the inside joke about Noni Madueke’s medal

When Chelsea were based in Philadelphia four weeks ago, Robert Sanchez arranged a day trip for his fellow goalkeepers to visit Manhattan.

It was close enough – an hour and a half on the train from William H Gray III 30th Street Station to New York Penn Station – and Sanchez did not know whether they would otherwise get to the Big Apple, as would be guaranteed if Chelsea reached the semi-finals. He figured why not, though it transpired the 27-year-old Spaniard could have waited.

Chelsea reached the semi-finals here, then the final, then became world champions with a stunning performance against Paris Saint-Germain, the consensus best team in the world – until Chelsea claimed that title in more official terms. Sanchez also won the Golden Glove award, and Cole Palmer the Golden Ball.

It was at 10.03pm on the night of Chelsea’s triumph that, for an hour, the Empire State Building turned its lighting blue in honour of their victory. Unexpected as it was from the outside, Enzo Maresca’s side came, saw and conquered NYC, beating Luis Enrique’s PSG exactly a month after flying to the United States on June 13 and in their 64th game of a gruelling 2024-25 season.

Chelsea will head home from the United States with £90million in prize money for their month’s work – a massive windfall which will count towards the Premier League’s financial rules as well as UEFA’s. The club have never revealed whether their stars would be financially rewarded for their long run at the Club World Cup, though it is believed bonuses were dangled in front of the squad as an added incentive to try to become world champions.

Much like in the Conference League, which Chelsea also won, the amount given to each player is likely to be based on number of appearances. I asked Maresca previously if he was in line for any of the millions coming Chelsea’s way and he told me he was not.

Sanchez’s excursion was indicative of the freedom Maresca gave his squad over the course of that time. That was considered crucial. Not only for Sanchez, who had an 18-month-old daughter he was missing dearly at home, but for everyone in the environment they were in.

Nice as their five-star hotels were, such as the Four Seasons in Philadelphia or The Peninsula in New York, Maresca was wary of them contracting cabin fever. Mail Sport recalls walking down Chestnut Street in Philly when we spied a bushy-haired bloke heading in the opposite direction, for example. It was Marc Cucurella, with the other Spanish speakers such as Pedro Neto and Marc Guiu.

Everyone else pounding the pavement that afternoon seemed much more taken aback by the girl wearing a ‘F*** Trump’ T-shirt as she walked her Rottweiler, while the footballers in the pedestrians’ midst were not recognised. The States was good in that regard because Chelsea’s stars could explore in a way they cannot back in London.

Levi Colwill went to the Rocky Steps. I asked Palmer if he had visited them, too. He was not taken with the idea, acting as nonplussed as he did when US President Donald Trump was trying to participate in the trophy lift with them at the MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Let’s get it right, Palmer did not get to meet Trump. It was Trump who got to meet Palmer after that majestic performance.

When not destroying PSG with two goals and an assist, the most touristy Palmer got was when he rode a scooter around Times Square in New York. Maresca likewise did not turn into a sightseer over here.

Chelsea’s manager told us he had ‘seen nothing’ as he was too busy in his digs analysing football games, including footage of Renato Gaucho teams from before his time as boss of Fluminense, their semi-final opponents. When we spied a few of Maresca’s support staff in bars, the 45-year-old Italian was not with them, but he did encourage his players to fly their families to the States.

That was particularly the case from the knockout stage onwards once they had moved to their new base in Miami. Chelsea helped facilitate their travel and accommodation as Palmer flew over his cousin, Nathan, who is also his personal trainer.

When Palmer was invited to take part in a pre-final photoshoot with PSG striker Ousmane Dembele at the top of the Rockefeller Center – sitting on a steel beam above all of New York, recreating the famous picture – he did not stop with one ride. I’m told he was seatbelted up again but with Nathan for the fun of it.

Before all that, though, Miami was seen as a breath of fresh air, quite literally as the players swapped the urban streets of Philly for sandy strolls on the beach. Joao Pedro was snapped there for his official photoshoot on July 2, having joined for £60million from Brighton and jetting straight into the squad. Colwill told us they used the trip to south Florida to clear their heads.

They had a card club wherever they went, Uno being their game of choice. There were also old and new video games available for playing in communal areas, and a ping-pong table set up. Tyrique George and Enzo Fernandez were good in those table tennis tournaments, Josh Acheampong and Tosin Adarabioyo less so.

It was hot and humid, obviously. Sessions were scheduled for mornings wherever they went, and Chelsea’s players were weighed after matches. Training at Barry University in Miami Shores, that leg of the trip was booked on the presumption they would win their group, because their last-16 tie would have been played at the Hard Rock Stadium in south Florida.

Chelsea finished second after losing to Flamengo in their second group game and so played 700 miles north at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte instead, but they stuck with their original travel plans. That was one less headache for their travel liaison officer – a chap whose job you would not envy and whom we saw looking flustered in the odd hotel lobby here in the States.

Maresca held a team-bonding barbecue in Miami on June 27. Friends, family, anyone was welcome. The next day, they beat Benfica 4-1 in Charlotte, when the location became an issue again. Lightning forced a two-hour break in the middle of the match, in a warning of what we could witness at next summer’s World Cup in the States.

Chelsea players will tell you that was the worst experience of this trip, and the same goes for the journalists who were frustrated by FIFA’s 30-minute countdown clock resetting every time a strike occurred within 10 miles of the stadium.

Throw in extra time – forced by Angel Di Maria’s 95th-minute equaliser for Benfica just after the restart – and the whole match took more than four hours.

But then it was all worth it. Maresca told us so after their victory over European champions PSG, before heading back to New York for a well-earned party after he had locked himself away in his tactics bunker for so long.

Maresca will not take three weeks’ holiday like his players. His family – wife Maria Jesus Pariente and their children – were with him in the United States for the knockout stage. Maresca will take minimal time before beginning preparations for the fast-approaching Premier League season.

There are concerns over the impact this will have on their next campaign – rivals such as Arsenal flew away to start pre-season training in La Manga while Chelsea’s 2024-25 season was still ongoing – but Maresca believes they can handle that challenge with their squad options.

After the full-time whistle in New Jersey – which Palmer marked by cutting down the goal nets in a scene reminiscent of American college basketball teams – and Trump’s intervention in the trophy lift, Chelsea kindly arranged for the travelling press pack from London to speak with Colwill separately from the mayhem of FIFA’s mixed zones. 

That is usually where you find random ‘influencers’ shoving their camera phones in the faces of footballers before asking us afterwards who they had been speaking to.

Colwill told us: ‘It wasn’t an upset because we know how good we are. If other people don’t believe that then hopefully we have changed their minds. We should get the credit we deserve. It was a statement victory and, in the future, if we keep winning trophies, then everyone will give us the love we deserve. We’ll only know that in the future.

‘I’ve just won the Club World Cup! In the future, I think this will be the biggest trophy of all. It will be bigger than the Champions League and we were the first team to win it. I might be saying that because we’re winners now but I really have enjoyed it.

‘That’s our plan: to win the biggest trophies for Chelsea. We’re definitely capable of doing it. We’ve shown that. Everyone said PSG were the best team in the world but we won 3-0.’

Asked if they can be contenders for the biggest trophies next season, Colwill added: ‘Definitely. I said at the start of this tournament our plan was to win it and people looked at me as if I was crazy!

‘So I’m going to say the exact same thing now going into the Premier League and Champions League. I think we’re ready and we’ll see next season.’

Noni Madueke left midway through the trip to sign for Arsenal for £52million. He is expected to be mailed a Club World Cup winners’ medal, and the joke in the camp is that he could show it to some of his new team-mates because they have never seen one. Madueke missed out on one hell of a night which came at the conclusion of a month spent mixing business and pleasure.

Now for 21 days of downtime, which Cucurella will spend on a Disney cruise with his young family. Then, it is back to the Premier League grind, starting at home to Crystal Palace on Sunday, August 17. 

When they run out at Stamford Bridge to start that new campaign in pursuit of the trophies Colwill promised, they will carry a reminder from this trip for the next four years on their shirts, in the form of a golden FIFA badge telling them they are world champions.