Maresca: Chelsea must be proud of Club World Cup progress

Chelsea "needed to be proud" of sealing their spot in the last 16 of the Club World Cup, so says Enzo Maresca.

The Blues eased to a 3-0 victory over ES Tunis on Tuesday as they finished runners-up to Flamengo in Group D. 

Quickfire strikes from Tosin Adarabioyo and Liam Delap, who netted his first goal for Chelsea, in first-half injury time paved the way for the win at Lincoln Financial Field. 

Tyrique George added further gloss to the scoreline in the seventh minute of second-half stoppage time, with Chelsea now facing Group C winners Benfica in the next round. 

Chelsea were worthy of their win, facing an expected goals (xG) total of just 0.07, the lowest they have faced during Maresca's tenure. 

They also managed to prevent ES Tunis from taking any shots from inside the box, the first time they had managed to do so in all competitions since May 2022 against Leicester City. 

After losing their second group game to Flamengo, Chelsea knew that a positive result would be enough to advance and avoid a shock early exit from the tournament. 

The first big surprise of the competition saw Atletico Madrid fall out, despite beating Botafogo in their final group match on Monday.

And Maresca believes Atleti's exit from the Club World Cup is a reason to celebrate for his team. 

"It is important for us because 32 clubs are in this tournament, now 16," Maresca said.

"There are clubs in the last five or six years that have played in the Champions League final, like Atletico Madrid, and they are already in Spain.

"So we need to be proud, we need to be happy. And now, from the [top] 16, the target is to go to the first eight."

Maresca also praised Delap's display, with the striker notching a goal and an assist in his first two appearances for the Blues since his move from Ipswich Town.

Delap showed great strength and skill to manoeuvre himself into a goal-scoring position, which ended with a composed finish past ES Tunis goalkeeper Bechir Ben Said. 

"We expect the process to be quite quick with Liam and the reason why is because we know him and he knows us in the way we want to play," said Maresca.

"For Dario Essugo, for Mamadou [Sarr] or even for Andrey [Santos], who was with just the last pre-season, it is going to be a little bit more complicated because they don't know the way we want to play exactly.

"But Liam, as I said, we know each other very good, so the process is quite quick, and then it is also because he is a very good player."

Delap's goal was teed up by Enzo Fernandez, who also got the assist for Adarabioyo's header that opened the scoring.

Since the start of April, Fernandez has the most goal contributions of any Premier League player in all competitions (11 - four goals and seven assists).