Chelsea need a result against Club Tunis on Tuesday night to stay in the Club World Cup where a staggering £97million bonus is on offer for the eventual winners of the tournament
Enzo Maresca insists he is not under pressure to win the Club World Cup because of the huge prize money.
Maresca claimed joint owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have not even spoken to him about the £97m jackpot for the eventual winners in the United States. The Chelsea boss is facing a make-or-break game in Lincoln Financial Field against underdogs Club Tunis where the Blues need a result to go into the knock-out, albeit a potential tie with Bayern Munich in the next round.
Chelsea would welcome the extra cash to ease the pressure on them from financial fair play rules with the Premier League and UEFA but Maresca says he is here purely for the glory of the game. Maresca said: “No, the owners just want the best for us and for the players, game by game. They are not talking about the final prize or the final reward in terms of money.
“They never put pressure on me or the players in terms of we need to win this tournament because of the money. They just want to try to win for everyone, for them, for the club, for the fans, for the players, for me, for everyone. It’s not just about the money.
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“When you are Chelsea manager or a Chelsea player, any game you don’t win you are a headline. It’s not about tomorrow, we are used to that. Tomorrow is a game that we need to do the right things to go through the next stage and we’re going to try our best.”
Chelsea cannot win the group after losing their second match to Flamengo and now need a result against Club Tunis to go through. They only need a draw to progress but they will most likely then play Bayern Munich in Charlotte on Saturday while Paris Saint-Germain could also be in that half of the draw.
Maresca said: “We have to ask the same question tomorrow night after the game. If we go through, we talk about Bayern. It’s in case we are able to win and we are going to face Bayern or PSG, it would be very nice. But at this moment, the main focus has to be about tomorrow, because football is full of surprises, bad surprises, and we don’t need surprises, we need to be ready, to win the game.
“And then after tomorrow night, we can start to talk about, I don’t know, Bayern or PSG.” Maresca has tried to play down Manchester United links with striker Christopher Nkunku who has been a bit-part player on this trip.
Nicolas Jackson is suspended after getting sent off against Flamengo while Reece James missed training through illness. Maresca added: “Christo is with us. He’s our player. He’s doing very well in the last four or five days, to be honest. So, probably, we can think of giving him some chances.
“For sure, tomorrow we’re going to make a rotation because the ones that played two games, they are quite tired to play again. So we need to make a rotation and see if there is any chance for the ones that, in this moment, are not playing a lot.”
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