EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The rout began with a sweep of a cultured left foot, and continued with a crippling counterattack. It was complete before halftime here at the 2025 Club World Cup final between Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. One side exploded up and down the field, and out to a 3-0 lead; the other staggered, as if exhausted, disrupted and dumbstruck.
It was everything everybody expected PSG to do Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
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But, remarkably, it was Chelsea doing it.
The Blues, who were +370 underdogs to win in regulation, needed only 43 minutes to race past PSG. They beat the European champion 3-0 and won the first edition of this expanded, lucrative, spectacular yet controversial tournament.
Cole Palmer, who’d been freezing cold from January through June, sank the favorites with two goals inside the first half hour, then an exquisite assist before halftime.
Palmer’s stealthy assault on the PSG goal began 22 minutes after the soccer began, after a pre-match show filled with Americana, after Michael Buffer boomed to a sold-out crowd of over 80,000: “Let’s get ready to rummmmbllllleeee!”
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The first 21 minutes had been relatively even. But then a long ball boinked off the head of PSG fullback Nuno Mendes, into the path of a suddenly free Malo Gusto. Moments later, it was on Palmer’s left foot at the top of the box. Palmer sent it curling into the bottom corner.
The sequence was slightly fluky. But the lead was arguably deserved. Chelsea started strong, stronger than anybody else had against PSG in months. And eight minutes later, Palmer made it 2-0.
This time, the 23-year-old Englishman made his own space at the top of the box. After Reece James blocked an Ousmane Dembélé pass, and Levi Colwill launched a counter, Palmer sensed his new teammate, João Pedro, steaming forward on an overlapping run. Palmer, with a subtle fake, sent PSG midfielder Vitinha retreating toward Pedro’s run, away from the ball. Palmer carried on into the box, sat down another PSG defender with a hesitation, and found the same bottom left corner.
To chase the game, from then on, PSG continued to charge into the attacking half. Chelsea handled the pressure, and punished the Parisians for all the space they left gaping.
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At one end, Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez was flawless, darting off his line to punch away crosses, scrambling across his goal to claw away would-be PSG goals.
At the other end, in the 43rd minute, Palmer slipped a clever through-ball into Pedro, who dinked a cute finish over PSG keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Chelsea fans, packed behind the far goal, erupted. Bodies leapt, and limbs punched the air.
And PSG never recovered.
For much of the 2024-25 season, and never more so than in Wednesday’s semifinal stomping of Real Madrid, the Parisians looked like a generational team. After that 4-0 win over Madrid — which followed a 5-0 destruction of Inter Milan in the Champions League final, a 4-0 takedown of Atlético Madrid on the second day of the Club World Cup, and a 4-0 beatdown of Inter Miami in the Round of 16 — Spanish reporters began to toss around a weighty word: “imbatable,” unbeatable.
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That, of course, was an exaggeration. No team is perfect. In soccer, no result is preordained, no conclusion foregone.
And on Sunday, Chelsea drove home that point.
By the latter half of the second half, PSG resorted to frustration fouls. João Neves was sent off for pulling Marc Cucurella’s hair. At the final whistle, players from both teams skirmished. Donnarumma, who’d been heated since the first half, confronted opponents. PSG coach Luis Enrique appeared to shove his hand into Pedro’s face.
Chelsea, meanwhile, bubbled with joy, and celebrated an unlikely title.
The Blues, for most of the month, felt like outsiders. They’d qualified for this Club World Cup via their win in the 2021 Champions League final, a match in which only one current player appeared. They arrived in the United States having finished fourth in the English Premier League, and having rolled through a third-tier continental competition, the UEFA Conference League. They were not favorites to win this tournament. Their only superlative was chief complainers. When they lost to Flamengo in the group stage, frankly, they didn’t seem like they were all that thrilled to be here.
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But they grew into the knockout stages. They took advantage of a relatively soft half of the bracket, beating Benfica, Palmeiras and Fluminense.
And then, in the final, they did what nobody thought anybody could.
