Chelsea win extraordinary four-hour Club World Cup match delayed by severe weather and packed with drama

New York Times

a day ago

Chelsea will play Palmeiras in the quarter-finals of the Club World Cup after defeating Benfica 4-1 in a last 16 game that was suspended for almost two hours by a severe weather warning, saw a controversial equalising penalty converted in stoppage time and was finally won in a flurry of extra-time goals, four hours and 38 minutes after kick off.
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There was 85 minutes on the clock when referee Slavko Vincic signalled for the players to leave the field due to severe weather in the area, a feature of this summer's tournament that is likely to be repeated at next year's World Cup, and the game did not resume until an hour and 55 minutes later.
Chelsea's players played football in the dressing room and rode exercise bikes to keep ready but when the game resumed, Benfica were awarded a controversial penalty in stoppage time.
Angel Di Maria scored to take the game into extra time and Benfica then had Gianluca Prestianni sent off for a second yellow card but Christopher Nkunku put Chelsea back in front with a smart lifted finish after an error by goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin.
Pedro Neto and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall added two more goals before the end as Benfica folded at the end of an extraordinary encounter. Reece James had scored in the 64th minute to open the scoring in a game that kicked off at 4pm ET and ended at
The win earns Chelsea a further $13.7m (about £9.8m), taking their estimated total prize money so far to about $54m.
Here The Athletic's Oliver Kay and Liam Twomey break down the key talking points.
For the sixth time since the Club World Cup began, storms forced a suspension in play. Chelsea were edging their way to a 1-0 victory in Charlotte, with less than five minutes left on the clock, when the referee ordered both teams to leave the pitch and return to the dressing rooms due to what FIFA described as 'severe weather in the area'. It was nearly two hours before the match officials gave the all-clear for play to resume.
Storms are a fact of life in the United States at this time of year, particularly in the central and eastern areas of the country — and that creates problems for so many of the host cities for this summer's Club World Cup (and next summer's World Cup). After earlier cases in Orlando (kick-off between Ulsan and Mamelodi Sundowns delayed by 65 minutes) and Cincinnati (Red Bull Salzburg against Pachuca suspended for 97 minutes), this time it was 113 minutes.
The match had been petering out, but the hiatus changed everything. Benfica's players looked like they had been let off the leash, Chelsea's as if they had expected to go through the motions for the final minutes. A Benfica equaliser immediately looked likely, even if the nature of it was fortuitous: an Angel Di Maria penalty awarded after a VAR check found Malo Gusto guilty of a handball.
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That meant extra time and, absurdly, more than four hours had passed since the game kicked off.
Chelsea ended up victorious after a flurry of goals in the second half of extra time, but for players and spectators alike — both at the stadium and on TV — these delays are challenging to say the least.
Oliver Kay
After the extraordinary delay, Benfica knew they had five minutes of normal time plus stoppage time to find an equaliser, which they did in controversial fashion when they were awarded a penalty for handball by Malo Gusto.
The move began when Benfica were awarded a soft free kick on the edge of the box after Caicedo was judged to have pulled down Di Maria.
From that free-kick, Di Mari played the ball to the back post where Gusto jumped didn't connect with his defensive header.
Behind him, Nicolas Otamendi did connect with his header, aiming it across the goal.
And with Gusto looking towards Otamendi, the ball struck Gusto's raised left arm as he fell.
The referee was watching the incident and did not give a penalty but after being called to the replay screen by the VAR he did award one, with Di Maria beating Robert Sanchez.
Remarkably, this was the first time that Reece James, Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia, Enzo Fernandez and Cole Palmer had all started a game together for Chelsea. Well, perhaps not quite so remarkable when you consider the injuries that have restricted both James and Lavia to so little football over the past two seasons.
But this was a glimpse of how Chelsea could look in the season ahead if those injury problems ease: James at right-back, Lavia and Caicedo in central midfield, Fernandez a little more advanced of that duo and Pedro Neto, on this occasion, joining Palmer and Liam Delap further forward.
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Chelsea have their first goal of the afternoon ⚽
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It was a surprise to see Palmer on the left: presumably a temporary measure, with Chelsea now having agreed a deal to sign England Under-21 winger Jamie Gittens from Borussia Dortmund. Palmer did not look entirely comfortable there, but there were flashes of quality. Likewise from Lavia and Caicedo, who controlled the midfield. Delap's performance was less easy to evaluate, but there were more signs that his speed, aggression and direct running are excellent raw attributes to work with.
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Perhaps the one disappointment was Fernandez. After his strong performances against Los Angeles FC and Esperance de Tunis in the group stage, this was a more difficult afternoon for the Argentina midfielder, facing his former club. The perfect system for Maresca's Chelsea is still to crystallise — and Palmer was far more effective in extra time after moving into a central role — but having James and Lavia fit makes such a difference.
Oliver Kay
Chelsea might have lost Caicedo even earlier. In the first half a heavy collision with Leandro Barreiro bent his right leg into a worrying arc and left him shouting in pain on the floor. It was the kind of moment that can lead to ligament damage, or worse.
Caicedo got back up and played on, as he always does. He is a warrior, but being a warrior has its downsides. Only five players in the Premier League received more yellow cards than him (11) last season and in the 61st minute at Bank of America Stadium, he earned the booking that rules him out of Chelsea's Club World Cup quarter-final against Palmeiras.
The reasoning of referee Vincic was unclear in the moment; Caicedo made no tackle to prompt the flash of yellow, but did appear to protest when teammate Marc Cucurella was penalised for a loose tackle deep in the Benfica half. If dissent was the offence, it is a cheap way for Chelsea to be deprived of arguably their most important player.
Caicedo started every single Premier League game for Chelsea in 2024-25, and every cup match that mattered. There is very little indication of what Maresca will do without him in this scenario; Romeo Lavia is at least fit to deputise but new arrival Dario Essugo does not seem ready yet and the return from James' outings at the base of midfield has been decidedly mixed.
Whatever alignment Maresca chooses, Chelsea's midfield is going to have a very different look and feel against Palmeiras without their player of the year.
Liam Twomey
Attendances have been up and down at this tournament — some genuinely impressive, some disappointing. This fell into the latter category, with large swathes of empty seats at the 74,867-capacity Bank of America Stadium.
FIFA announced an official attendance of 25,929, which means the stadium was just over one-third full or nearly two-thirds empty, depending on your perspective of such matters.
The city has a considerable appetite for football; Charlotte FC regularly attract 30,000-plus crowds in Major League Soccer and there was a crowd of 70,248 when Real Madrid played Pachuca last Sunday. But this knock-out game between two European clubs on a Saturday afternoon was evidently a harder sell than some of FIFA's excitable hype suggests — hard to sell at FIFA's prices, at least.
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To the great credit of those who were there, many stuck around through the entire delay.
Oliver Kay
Chelsea staff are likely to be more familiar with Palmeiras' path to the Club World Cup last eight than most, given that Estevao is being keenly observed inside and outside the club ahead of the formal completion of his move to Stamford Bridge after the tournament.
But despite being voted player of the match in two of his team's three group games and carried a lively threat against Botafogo in the round of 16, Estevao has not been the driving force behind Palmeiras' progress to this point.
Abel Ferreira's team are built on a sturdy defence that has kept clean sheets in three of their four Club World Cup matches, conceding twice in a four-goal thriller against Inter Miami.
They press aggressively from the front, looking to win the ball long before it can reach their defensive third. It does not always overwhelm opponents but there has been plenty of evidence in the United States that it is effective in wearing them down; all five of Palmeiras' goals in this tournament have been scored after half-time, and it was no surprise to see them come on stronger than Botafogo in extra time at Lincoln Financial Field.
All eyes will understandably be on Estevao in the quarter-final, but it would be foolish for Maresca and Chelsea to focus solely on their incoming prodigy.
Liam Twomey
Friday, July 4: Palmeiras, Club World Cup quarter-finals (Philadelphia), 9pm ET, 2am (Saturday) UK
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