Enzo Maresca hails ‘fantastic’ Estevao after Chelsea beat Palmeiras to progress in Club World Cup | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca says beating Palmeiras was the “perfect night” for Chelsea.

The Blues picked up a 2-1 victory to advance to the semi-finals of the Club World Cup, with soon to be Chelsea youngster Estevao also scoring for Palmeiras in what was his last game for the Brazilian side.

The 18-year-old will now link up with Maresca’s side having previously agreed a move to the club.

The Chelsea manager said: “Estevao, I spoke with him for the first time after the game. I told him that it’s been the perfect night because we won, he scored. So it’s been perfect for us and for him. You can see that he’s a huge talent.

“You can see that he’s a fantastic player. And the only thing for me is when you come from South America or in general from the other part of the world, Europe, you need to adapt. So, we’re going to help him to adapt. First of all, to be happy, to continue to enjoy football. And we don’t have any doubt because he’s so good that he’s going to be a very important player for Chelsea.”

The build-up for the game was focused largely around Estevao, and it is fair to say he delivered on that excitement. He was directly up against Marc Cucurella, one of the best full-backs in the Premier League, and caused him all sorts of problems.

Maresca also confirmed that new signing Jamie Gittens was in attendance in Philadelphia: “Jamie was here tonight, he was on the pitch. And he will be with us probably one more day, two days more. And then he will go for a holiday and come back when we’re going to start the new season.”

Preparation for the game was not perfect, with some injuries and suspensions, and Maresca hailed the way his side overcame some adversity to get the win: “Moi [Caicedo] was suspended. Romeo [Lavia], unfortunately, he had a small muscle problem. And Reece, he felt something during the warm-up. We think that it’s tightness, so we prefer not to take any risk for him.

“And we decided to start with Andrey [Santos]. I think now we are one year together. We know each other much, much better compared to one year ago. And with different structure, different way to play, I think the players, they are getting better and better.”

Chelsea will now face another Brazilian side, Fluminense, in New York, and the Italian said he has been very impressed with them so far: “I watched this afternoon’s game. I watched some games that they have played. And you can see that they are very well organised. They have some very good players.

“The manager is doing a fantastic job. The energy from the Brazilian team in this competition has been high energy. Probably the reason why is because you are starting now the season, while we are finishing the season. So, the energy is normal. It is different. And we try to deal with that in a different way.”

Watch the Club World Cup live on DAZN: www.dazn.com/Hayterstv