Enzo Maresca has little intention of dwelling on past achievements. Yet he appreciates how they influence future ambitions and new challenges, which for him and his Chelsea squad come in the form of the FIFA Club World Cup.

The Blues landed Stateside yesterday afternoon, and it was straight to work at our training base on the outskirts of Philadelphia this morning. In unexpectedly cool and drizzly conditions, the Chelsea head coach oversaw preparations for our opening fixture, which is against MLS club Los Angeles FC in Atlanta on Monday evening.

It is later in the day at the team hotel that Maresca joins us. The Italian cuts a relaxed figure as he takes a seat, but he is clearly in work mode. Now is not the time to relax.

‘We had a few days off after the Conference League final,’ he begins. ‘But then we returned and we started to prepare for this competition. It was so quick [the turnaround] and we needed to be ready.

'The good thing is that we finished the Premier League and the Conference League in the way we all wanted, so now we have arrived with a good feeling and are fully focused on this competition.’

Just two weeks separated our successful night in Wroclaw against Real Betis and the Blues players – those not on international duty – returning to Cobham to begin our preparations for the Club World Cup.

It’s why Maresca quickly put the success enjoyed at the end of May in his rearview mirror. However, the experiences gained are hugely important, and the Blues head coach highlights how his team will be better for the respective highs and lows of our Premier League and Conference League campaigns.

He says: ‘I’ve said many times that you can improve the team if you improve players. I have seen since we started that the players are improving, and that is the most important thing. Levi Colwill, Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo, Marc Cucurella, Noni Madueke, so many of these players are getting better and better.

‘There is no doubt that the different experiences have helped all of us. When we had our difficult moment - the bad run in February - I said that I felt that it would make us better. You have to show effort, togetherness, resilience, and you don’t change everything because you are not winning.

'If you have the feeling the team is working well and the team is working hard, you have to continue. We continued, won eight of our last nine matches, and achieved two important targets.

'So while in that moment it is easy to drop mentally, the players were top. They never dropped and we showed in the end we could finish very well.’

It wasn’t just the players who took important lessons from the campaign, though. Maresca stresses that he has also benefited from the varied challenges posed during his first year at the helm at Stamford Bridge.

‘I feel I have developed a lot,’ he says. ‘It was a fantastic season as I learned a lot day by day and game by game.

'None of it was a surprise because I have worked in England for many years, first at West Ham and also at Manchester City. But for sure, with the amount of games we played, every one was an opportunity to learn things about myself and the team.'

Maresca pauses before adding: 'What was a fantastic feeling for me was in the moment of the season we struggled, I saw the players continuing to work in the same way; they were continuing to work in the way we had done from the moment we started.

'It is very easy to change when you don't get results, very easy to drop or change. But the players could smell the right things, and they could see the direction was the right one.'

That trust ensured the Blues ended the campaign strongly, and we claimed a top-four finish in the Premier League, which secured Champions League qualification, and lifted the Conference League trophy in Poland.

The latter triumph saw silverware lifted by the Blues for the first time since 2022, and Maresca is grateful to have given such a moment to the Blues supporters.

'We want to make the fans happy and we know that if we win matches we will do that,' he says. 'Of course, if we don't win matches, we know they will not be happy – and we will not be happy either!

'But at the end of the season, we were able to give them that moment and make them happy. That is what we want, and we have to keep on working like this. That is the target.'

Chelsea's opening game against LAFC kicks off at 8pm UK time on Monday. You can watch that and every other game at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 live for free by signing up with DAZN here.