Chelsea Football Club, the plucky posh upstarts from West London, slayed the giant of Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. With three goals in the first half, Chelsea secured its place as World Champions, winning the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, 3-0.
It was a day marked with pageantry and presentation, with diplomats and musical performances in an event that also featured a soccer game. It was also a day marked with high emotions and flaring tempers.
Still, Cole Palmer scored two goals and earned an assist to rightly be named both Player of the Match and Golden Ball winner. His effort helped Chelsea become the fifth team to ever win multiple Club World Cup titles, and the first to win in the expanded format. The club will now be known as World Champions for four years.
"It’s a great feeling. The gaffer put a great game plan out. He knew where there would space and tried to free me up as much as possible,” Palmer said after the game. “I just had to repay him and score some goals. [Enzo Maresca] is building something special. I feel we’re going in the right direction."
Oliver Strand
Palmer owned the first half
Off the jump, this was not a normal PSG performance. The Parisians who had dominated opponents in the knockout rounds of the Club World Cup, controlling the tempo and threatening early, were nowhere to be seen. Instead, PSG looked lost against a Chelsea that was keen to stamp its authority early in the match.
Just eight minutes into the game, the royal blue part of MetLife Stadium thought midfielder Cole Palmer opened the scoring when he took a shot from the top of the penalty area. But Chelsea’s No 10 just missed the mark.
Still, that opening stretch convinced Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca that his side was in the driver’s seat. "For me, we won the game in the first 10 minutes,” Maresca said after the game. “We set the tempo and we were very good at pressing them. The conditions made it hard to keep going but the boys did well."
Paris's offense was wasteful, best demonstrated by how the team’s first real chance of the match fell apart. A long pass to Fabian Ruiz in the 16th minute saw the winger roll a perfect long ball to Désiré Doué in the box. Instead of Doué shooting from point-blank range, he tried to pass it back to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia so that he could square it into the goal. But Chelsea defender Marc Cucurella blocked the attempt and kept the game scoreless.
But the main star of the first half was Palmer, who got on the scoresheet in the 22nd minute.
A long ball from Chelsea keeper Robert Sánchez was mistakenly headed back by PSG defender Nuno Mendes. Malo Gusto raced into the box with open space, but his eventual shot was blocked by a sliding center-back Lucas Beraldo. The Frenchman recovered his own rebound and slid the ball back to Palmer, who calmly placed the ball into the bottom left corner for the lead.
The two teams came together for a brief scuffle after the goal, giving the 81,118 in attendance at MetLife a taste of things to come.
Palmer took the reins once again not long after the game’s first hydration break. A series of poor choices by PSG just across the midfield line in the Chelsea end led to an interception and long ball by Reece James that Palmer chased down. The PSG defense focused more on getting in front of the net than stopping the England national team player, opening up space at the top of the penalty area.
Acting like he had all the time in the world, Palmer calmly slotted a shot to the bottom left corner for the second time in this match in the 30th minute.
"Today we found a position for him where there was more space to attack,” Maresca said after the game. “Obviously, Cole played really well, but the effort from all the players was fantastic."
By that point, PSG knew it was getting outplayed for the first time in this tournament. The team had only trailed once in this competition, when Botafogo beat them 1-0 in the Group Stage. But now they trailed by multiple goals, and the French champions started to unravel.
It probably didn’t help that Chelsea players were pushing buttons by this point, both on and off the ball. The London side ended the first half with three yellow cards.
The final nail in the coffin came in the 43rd minute. This time, Palmer started the movement when the Englishman found himself with a lot of space to work with as a retreating PSG ceded the midfield. He threaded a through ball to João Pedro in the box, who waited for goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma to close him in before lifting a quick shot over the keeper’sextended right leg to make it 3-0.
Most of the fans in attendance were there to support Chelsea, and the stadium erupted with the third goal.
Matthew Mangam
Tempers flare in second half
The halftime included a performance by J. Balvin, Doja Cat, Emmanuel Kelly, and Coldplay, held on a temporary stage built high up in the third tier of seating at MetLife that reduced the stadium’s capacity from 82,500 to 81,118. Oliver Kay of The Athletic wrote that “The half-time break was 23 minutes long. I don't want to be that guy, but .... come on, lads, get on with the game.”
First, he should try to survive a hockey game, which has two 18-minute breaks. Second, PSG could have had an hour to go over game tape and work out tactics on a whiteboard, and it still wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
Chelsea allowed PSG to control possession, conceding 60% of ball time to them. But Chelsea’s low block was impossible to break. Meanwhile, Chelsea’s annoying counterattacks kept PSG from fully committing forward, lest Palmer try for a tidy hat-trick.
Tension started building around 20 minutes into the second half, when Palmer and PSG’s Fabián Ruiz played for the same ball. It ended with the PSG player giving Palmer a shove, and both teams crowding in to separate the two players.
As the half wore on, Chelsea players found any reason they could to go to ground. Cucurella went down in a dramatic explosion of flying hair after being tripped by João Neves. The Portuguese midfielder tried to physically pull Cucurella back up, cradling the slack Spaniard like he was a wounded soldier who needed to be carried back to safe lines.
Similar situations continued as the half wore on. A Chelsea player would go down, and a PSG player would either try to help them up or push them off the field to continue play.
Neves and Cucurella continued to spar throughout the half. It ended when Cucurella went in for an off-the-ball challenge with a high but acceptable arm, and the PSG midfielder responded by pulling the hair of the Spaniard as he was walking away. A quick VAR check confirmed violent conduct, and an initial yellow card was upgraded to a straight red.
PSG still tried to claw back some dignity in the 89th when substitute Gonçalo Ramos looked like he was going to head in a goal on an open net, but he was off-target and sent the ball back into the box.
Once the full-time whistle finally blew, emotions exploded. Donnarumma started pushing Chelsea players, which started a confrontation that almost turned into a brawl. At one point, PSG coach Luis Enrique appeared to shove his hand into Pedro’s throat. It was an ugly end to what had been a standout tournament for the Parisisans.
A full house
With an official crowd number of 81,118, Sunday’s game felt like a big-time match. Despite the criticism pointed at the FIFA Club World Cup, especially by European pundits who feel that any tournament that doesn’t take place on that continent is suspect, the stakes of this final were plenty high.
It wasn’t just because there were more fans in the stands than at any other game, just beating out the 80,619 who watched PSG demolish Atlético de Madrid in a Group Stage match at the Rose Bowl back in mid-June. "I have the feeling that this competition is going to be as important, if not more important than, the Champions League," said Maresca "I was lucky to be on the coaching staff of a team that won the Champions League a few years ago, but this competition features the best teams in the world and I think we can value it on the same level.”
"It is a great triumph for us and it will allow the Chelsea fans to have that on our shirt for the next four years, so it is a source of pride," he added.
Those Chelsea fans who made up a majority of the crowd at MetLife Stadium were in full voice throughout the match. Two of Chelsea’s three yellow cards in the first half received a loud chorus of boos. The near misses on goal by Cole Palmer brought MetLife to a gasp. The only audible chants heard behind the MetLife press box were those of Chelsea fans.
PSG’s supporters hardly registered at MetLife. The defending World Champions were playing a road game in New Jersey.
That’s why MetLife was still 90% full for the trophy presentation despite the long wait between the final whistle and the formal celebration. It also proves that fans care about this competition: They came to see a game and a trophy. Even a contingent of PSG remained to watch their team receive runner-up medals.
There were also plenty of famous faces at the match. Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady and New England Revolution owner Robert Kraft were seen together on the field ahead of kickoff. The NFL theme continued with current New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife, musician Ciara, also making an appearance. Brazilian soccer legend Ronaldo was there, as was former United States men’s national team captain John Harkes.
Then, of course, there was the day’s biggest guest.
Trump’s scene-stealing cameo
Despite Chelsea thoroughly outplaying PSG, and Palmer emerging as the game’s most impressive player on a field filled with superstars, it was the 47th President of the United States who emerged as one of the biggest talking points of the match. Donald Trump watched the full game from a suite he shared with FIFA President Gianni Infantino. In front of them was the replica of the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup — the original, which was on display at the White House, will remain with Trump.
Trump’s presence meant more security – which is to say, more snipers – a flyover pregame with military jets, and the US National Anthem played immediately prior to kickoff.
You couldn’t escape Trump. During a midgame interview with tournament broadcaster Dazn, he said he could issue an executive order changing the name of the sport from soccer to football in the United States.
But his appearance at the award ceremony created what might be the tournament’s lasting image. Trump and Infantino walked onto the pitch around 5:45 PM, when they were met with a mixed reaction — inside the press box you could hear mostly boos, but the music in the stadium was made louder to drown out the negative noise.
Chelsea and PSG players were given their individual medals by both FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Trump. The two also handed out the tournament’s three individual awards, including a golden ball presented to Palmer for earning player of the match. But the iconic moment occurred after both presidents walked the trophy over to Chelsea’s James Reece. Infantino left the stage, but Trump stayed put, the 79-year-old former reality TV star standing in front of the dozens of athletes and coaches who worked so hard to win this title.
Chelsea paused a beat so that Trump could leave. He didn’t. Palmer can be seen asking, “What’s he doing?” and James asking the President to leave the stage. Trump stayed put.
What followed was an awkward trophy lift that included the Chelsea players, who won the award, and the President of the United States. It was awkward, and admittedly hilarious, but Trump simply did not care.
After the match, Palmer said, “I knew he was going to be there, but I didn't know he was going to be on the stand where we lift the trophy. So, I was a bit confused.”
Trump was asked by DAZN who he considers to be the GOAT in soccer.
"Many years ago when I was young, they brought a player named Pelé to play, and he played for a team called the Cosmos," Trump said. "This place was packed. It was an earlier version of this stadium, but right here in the Meadowlands, and it was Pelé. I don't want to date myself, but that was a long time ago. I was a young guy, and I came to watch Pelé, and he was fantastic."
If the White House reads Hudson River Blue, his staff will know that the Cosmos are returning in 2026, and if Trump wants to watch them play in the third tier of American soccer, his motorcade will need to go north on Route 3 to Paterson, NJ, to watch them play at Hinchcliffe Stadium.
Michael Battista
