Enzo Maresca blames Club World Cup win for Champions League struggles

Martin Macdonald

• 6 Nov 2025 09:00 CST
• 3 min read

Nieuws

Enzo Maresca believes Chelsea's exploits in the Club World Cup in the summer have hurt his team at points this season.

On Wednesday, the Blues stumbled to a 2-2 draw against Qarabag away in the Champions League - it was the first time the Azerbaijan side had claimed a point against an English side in their history.

The hosts were 2-1 up going into the break and Maresca had to rely on his half-time substitutions to help salvage the draw, despite Estevao initially giving Chelsea the lead.

He's been a bit of a 'tinkerman' this season as he has made 85 changes to his starting line-ups which is more than any other manager in the Premier League. He made a raft of changes again ahead of the Qarabag game.

The Italian says he is being forced to rotate because the Blues went so far in the Club World Cup, eventually winning the tournament.

"The intention was to rest Enzo (Fernandez), to rest Moises (Caicedo), to rest Malo (Gusto), to rest more players, because they are not able to play every three days," he told reporters.

"They need recovery from last season.

Despite only joining in the summer, 18-year-old Estêvão is already making history at Chelsea ⭐ pic.twitter.com/2JOsD1wBeN

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"The Club World Cup affects a lot. We try to rotate. When you win, no one mentions all that. When we don't win, everyone is focused on that, and now I think it's important to recover energy for Saturday and go again."

Both Caicedo and Fernando were substituted into the game.

Maresca didn't hold back in his criticism of the team following the game and believes they failed at both ends of the pitch, in attack and defence.

"I think I said before, the big difference today for me was inside the box," the Chelsea boss confessed.

"The goal we conceded, they are silly goals for me. In their box, for the amount of times that we arrived, we have not been clinical enough. So this is the big difference for me."

More injury issues for Lavia

Romeo Lavia, whose career at Stamford Bridge has been ravaged by injuries, was forced off only eight minutes into the game.

Maresca provided some supporting words for his player, saying:

"Yeah, we feel very ashamed especially for him because he's not able to be fit for a long, long period. We will see now as it's too early to understand what kind of injury. Hopefully it's not a big injury."

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