Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca will be looking to add to the trophy he brought back to Stamford Bridge in his first season in charge of the club.
The Italian delivered the Conference League last month, however now will be looking to take a step up and perform at the Club World Cup in the United States.
Maresca will be hoping the signing of Liam Delap can help him achieve this goal, as well as being able to call upon Andrey Santos, Dario Essugo and Mamadou Sarr.
Chelsea famously won the Club World Cup back in 2021, completing their set of European trophies in the process.
Chelsea’s unwanted Club World Cup record
However, their only other appearance amongst the best the world has to offer is one that many at the club would like to forget.
The Blues travelled to Japan in 2012 expected to make easy work of their opponents, with them only having to play one game before reaching the final against Corinthians.
However, an underwhelming display capped off with Fernando Torres missing multiple glorious chances saw them fall to a 1-0 defeat, setting an unwanted record in the process.
Between the years of 2007 and 2023, Chelsea were the only European team not to win the competition. Manchester City did it after their Champions League glory without conceding a single goal.
After the change of format, it has become clear that Chelsea will have to beat far more teams of better quality if they are to be victorious this time around.
New Club World Cup format explained
As opposed to the previous version of the competition where only seven sides competed for glory, there will be 32 clubs present for this year’s tournament in the United States.
A number of European giants have qualified via reaching the Champions League final over the last few years. This includes City, PSG, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Borussia Dortmund.
Teams have been drawn into a group of four, with Chelsea set to face LAFC, Flamengo and ES Tunis before hopefully advancing to the Round of 16.
With a serious financial prize on offer for the winners, Chelsea are expected to be taking the competition as seriously as possible, despite it not leaving them long to prepare for the next Premier League season.
