CHARLOTTE — A season that has felt like it could go on forever now has a match that almost did. However much Chelsea feared their Club World Cup campaign could turn into a long slog, nothing could have prepared them for this: a game that finished four hours and 38 minutes after it began.
Saturday’s — yes, just checking it is still Saturday — 4-1 win over Benfica set up a quarterfinal against Palmeiras next Friday after Christopher Nkunku, Pedro Neto and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall all struck in extra time to settle one of the most truncated matches in history.
The Blues will be extremely grateful they have six days to recover from this. In what felt like a different age, Reece James‘ 64th-minute free kick appeared to have given Chelsea a hard-fought if largely uninspiring victory but, in reality, the game had barely started.
Slovenian referee Slavko Vincic stopped the match with four minutes remaining for a severe weather warning that forced the players from the field and the fans to the safety of the concourse at the Bank of America Stadium.
As a storm rattled around this part of North Carolina, a proposed time to resume was pushed back on several occasions. Chelsea’s players huddled inside the locker room, many on bikes trying to tick over. A rainbow eventually appeared. With the threat of another storm system coming in, both teams agreed to a shortened warm-up to try to squeeze in the final period before the lightning returned.
In fact, there was plenty more to come. Nicolás Otamendi headed at goal, and as Malo Gusto jumped, the ball hit the back of his hand. He was facing the other way; the idea he had any intent to handle the ball was absurd, but that does not matter in this day and age: It was deemed to be in an unnatural position and Benfica had their lifeline.
When Ángel Di María stroked home the spot kick to equalize in the fifth minute of added time, it was almost 8 p.m. local time and many in the 25,929 crowd had disappeared into the city.
They missed a rousing encore. Gianluca Prestianni was shown a second yellow card two minutes into extra time, and Chelsea made their numerical advantage count. Cole Palmer found Moisés Caicedo in the box. His shot was saved by Benfica goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin, but the ball squirmed free, and as Otamendi tried to clear, Nkunku reacted quickest to wrap his body around the ball and fire high into the net.
Benfica’s race was finally run and they conceded twice on the counterattack with Neto racing clear for his third goal in four games before Dewsbury-Hall followed suit with a clever dinked finish.
Blues coach Enzo Maresca celebrated with a cluster of supporters near the dugout afterward, but he could not hide his outrage at being asked to complete a game in these conditions — the sixth such occasion at the Club World Cup where a match has been stopped due to bad weather.
“For 85 minutes we were in control of the game,” Maresca said. “We didn’t concede nothing, we created chances enough to win the game. And then after the break, the game changed completely. I think for me personally it’s not football.
“It’s already seven, eight, nine games that they suspended. I think it’s a joke to be honest, it’s not football. It’s not for us. I can understand that for security reasons, you are to suspend the game. But if you suspend seven, eight games that means that probably is not the right place to do this competition.
“Please, don’t misunderstand me. I said it’s a fantastic competition. It’s a Club World Cup. It’s top. We are happy to be in the last eight. We are happy to win all these kind of things. But something happens, six, seven games suspended, probably the one that they decide, they need a reason, because it’s not normal to suspend a game.”
This wasn’t a great advert for the tournament in general. The attendance was disappointingly low, the pitch produced an unusual bounce of the ball and although supporter safety is paramount, the logistics of asking two sets of players to wait almost two hours to play, theoretically, four minutes are bordering on the absurd.
A time limit would surely need to be introduced. Charlotte is not one of the 16 host cities for next year’s FIFA World Cup, but only five of the stadiums have roofs.
This game perfectly encapsulated the elements players will have to contend with given it had two cooling breaks and also a two-hour break for a storm.
“As I said, the game was very good for 85 minutes,” Maresca said. “Then we had an hour and a half, two-hour stop. Then it started completely different. It’s not the same game. It’s not the same game because you break the tempo.
“So two hours inside; people speak with the family outside, if they were good, the security. People eating, people laughing, people talking on the mobile. It’s two hours. That’s why I said it’s not football.”
Maresca spoke as Chelsea were rushing for their flight back to Miami, where they will spend the week before flying to Philadelphia on Thursday night. Caicedo will be suspended against Palmeiras, and there is plenty more to analyze in among the controversy: Palmer playing off the left with initial promise, the sight of Caicedo, Romeo Lavia and Enzo Fernández starting in midfield together for just the second time, whether Liam Delap has done enough to keep out Nicolas Jackson as he returns from suspension.
A period of calm will follow this chaos and, my, how Chelsea need it.
