Maresca’s “happy to be here” comments may worry some Chelsea fans | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca is taking his first Champions League press conference, and the coach was asked about what his expectations were for the competition.

Maresca’s thoughts on Chelsea’s Champions League adventure

The Champions League ball. (Photo by Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images)

“First of all, we are very happy to be in this competition. One year ago, we were playing the Conference League play-off. We are happy to be here,” the Chelsea boss said.

“For sure, winning the Conference League and the Club World Cup help in different aspects. In terms of experience, I think all of us, when we start something, we have a lack of experience. We have to start and we’re going to start tomorrow.

Happy to be here” is a bit of a red flag for English sports fans as it’s generally used quite negatively – as in you’re just happy to take part rather than expecting to win it.

But we’re sure Maresca doesn’t mean it like that, and his team will be doing all they can to lift the trophy, starting tomorrow with a huge game against Bayern.

Chelsea to go “game by game” in Champions League pursuit

He was then pushed on whether he really believe his team can do the job and win this competition:

“First of all, you know already since last season that I always like to go game by game,” Maresca said sternly.

“You cannot think about the final or semi-final if you are not able to win games in the group stage. It’s the first thing tomorrow. We have the first one against a fantastic team that is probably one of the three, four or five favourites in this competition. We are going to try to do our job in the best way.”

Going game by game makes a lot of sense – we hope tomorrow’s game puts us off to a good start.