Starting strong

‘I think we won the game in the first ten minutes,’ Enzo Maresca said in the wake of the victory. We may not have scored in that period – although Cole Palmer very nearly did – but we set the tone for what was to come with a textbook display of intense pressing that stifled PSG's rhythm.

This was the second time PSG had the ball under their control in their defensive third. Not three minutes have been played. Reece James, our most advanced player, has joined Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez in trying to disrupt PSG’s passing network.

Further back, Trevoh Chalobah has stepped out of defence to get close to Fabian Ruiz.

With no pass available through the lines – as PSG prefer to play – they are forced to go long. Levi Colwill and Marc Cucurella are tight to their men, and Colwill wins the first header, allowing us to regain possession.

Maresca hailed the collective effort required to pull off such a plan, especially in very hot conditions.

‘The idea was to go man-to-man,’ he explained. ‘PSG are so good that if you give them time you are going to struggle. You have to press them very intensely.’

Here, Levi Colwill has stepped out to stay close to Ousmane Dembele, arguably PSG’s most dangerous player.

Further back, Desire Doue has taken up a central striking role, so Cucurella has followed him. With Achraf Hakimi loitering on their right flank, it is up to Pedro Neto to track the speedy Moroccan. It's something he did to great effect on several occasions early in the game.

With no easy forward option available to him, Marquinhos is forced to play a sideways pass.

With the ten-minute mark approaching, the European champions have got nowhere. In fact, it is Chelsea who have found space to work with, either from playing long passes from deep or from stealing possession high up the pitch.

Our diligent man-marking paid off throughout the opening 45 minutes and was key to our second goal of the final.

This time Colwill steps out to pressurise Fabian Ruiz. Dembele tries an ambitious pass that James intercepts. Enzo nods the loose ball down to Colwill – standing in a conventional central midfield position – and his turn and wonderful pass releases Cole Palmer.

Suddenly, Chelsea are four on three, with so many PSG players well ahead of the ball. Palmer does the rest to double our advantage!

Overloading down the right

There are 36 seconds on the clock when Robert Sanchez plays his first diagonal ball towards the right flank. It picks out Palmer, who calmly controls it on halfway, and our first attack of note is underway.

As against Flamengo, our No.10 is deployed on the right of our attack. The plan, as Maresca spoke about after the game, was to use Malo Gusto as an overlapping full-back 'to create a little bit of an overload', as the head coach puts it.

Palmer also benefits from the sharp movement of Joao Pedro, who is comfortable drifting across the frontline to find space, or taking defenders with him to open up space, as he did for our second goal.

Here, on 15 minutes, Sanchez fires the ball down the right flank. Palmer (to the right of the picture) has dropped deeper, concerning Nuno Mendes. Gusto (in the bottom right-hand corner) reads the play and sprints in behind.

Gusto is now our most advanced player on the pitch. Again, Chelsea have turned PSG around and have four attacking players in line with their back four. Palmer is a little behind the play but can menacingly advance from a deeper position.

A few minutes later, a similar story leads to our opener. On that occasion, Mendes opts to challenge Gusto aerially from Sanchez's long pass, but our man comes out on top and eventually finds Palmer, in plenty of space, to coolly slot us ahead.

Gusto plays an important role in our third, too. This time, Sanchez throws him the ball on the right touchline, just in front of Maresca. Gusto plays it back to Chalobah, who assertively rolls a pass into Palmer's feet.

Palmer has dropped deeper to collect it, and Gusto immediately sprints forward; James and Caicedo are on hand to help defensively if required.

Mendes again has a problem. Does he confront Palmer and risk leaving Gusto a free run down the right, or backtrack to bide time for other players to help out? He raises his arm in the direction of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, and you can hear him shouting at the Georgian to help out.

Mendes opts to retreat to cover Gusto's overlapping run, but there is nobody around to pressure Palmer. Individual brilliance follows in the shape of his pass and Joao Pedro's well-timed run and finish. Chelsea are in dreamland.

‘At the end of the day, you can give a detailed plan to your players, but they need to execute it and they did that so well,' Maresca humbly acknowledged. His and his staff's pre-match preparation had most certainly paid off. Nobody completed more passes in the final third for us than Gusto.

Moises in the middle

It was an outstanding collective effort; every Chelsea player put in an excellent performance.

Yet again, though, Moises Caicedo was central to our best work defensively, thwarting PSG's attacks time after time. Here, it seems the Ecuadorian is behind play, with the ball with Doue on the right flank and Hakimi a good ten yards ahead of him.

However, just a few seconds later, Caicedo has not only eaten up the ground but put himself into a position to make a tackle.

Our Player of the Year won each of the three tackles he attempted in the final, harrying the Parisians from improbable angles.

Here, Doue looks to turn into a dangerous position, but Caicedo somehow wraps his leg around him to win the ball cleanly. 'The Octopus' had struck again – and he didn't lose possession all game, either.

Afterward, Caicedo would win the Bronze Ball, recognised by FIFA's technical team as the third-best player at the Club World Cup.

He just keeps raising the bar. Happily, the Blues are the beneficiaries.