Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca defended a rotated side after his team were held 2-2 by Qaraba\u011f in the Champions League, saying the Club World Cup had affected his selection. Chelsea, expected to win convincingly, trailed 2\u20131 at half-time and required a second-half equaliser from substitute Alejandro Garnacho to secure a point.<\/p>\n
The result marks a notable moment in Qaraba\u011f\u2019s record against English opposition. \u201cIt is the first time in eight meetings with English teams that Qaraba\u011f have not been beaten,\u201d the postmatch summary noted, and the club will face Liverpool on Jan. 28 in the final league phase matchday, which will be their ninth encounter against English opposition.<\/p>\n
Maresca had made clear his intention to rotate for cup competitions this season, with the manager explaining his approach after the match. \u201cThe intention was to rest Enzo, to rest Mois\u00e9s, to rest Malo, to rest more players, because they are not able to play every three days. They need recovery from last season,\u201d he said, referring to his decision to begin the first-choice midfield pairing of Mois\u00e9s Caicedo and Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez on the bench.<\/p>\n
Caicedo was introduced just eight minutes into the game to replace the injured Rom\u00e9o Lavia. Malo Gusto was also rested from the start, and no chances were taken with Wesley Fofana.<\/p>\n
Maresca addressed the wider context after the draw. \u201cThe Club World Cup affects [us] a lot. We try to rotate. When you win, no one mentions all that. When we don\u2019t win, everyone is focused on that, and now I think it\u2019s important to recover energy for Saturday [against Wolves in the Premier League] and go again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The draw prevented an unexpected defeat but leaves Chelsea to balance recovery and competition as the 2025\/26 campaign progresses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca blamed the Club World Cup after Chelsea were held 2-2 by Qaraba\u011f in the Champions League note<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[227,1140,1047],"class_list":["post-4291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","tag-alejandro-garnacho","tag-caicedo","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}