Chelsea FC dominates Club América during third U.S. preseason match in Atlanta

Caption

In under two minutes into the Chelsea-Club America game on Wednesday, July 31, there was a direct penalty shot.

Credit: Madison Auchincloss/Rough Draft

For the third time in three years, England’s Chelsea FC is on tour in the U.S. to kick off its preseason. 

The club began its U.S. swing in California playing Ryan Reynolds’ Wrexham, stopped at Notre Dame to play Celtic, and made their third stop in Atlanta on Wednesday night against Club América, a Liga MX club from Mexico City. 

“It’s important for us as well to show another thing,” Chelsea player Malo Gusto said. “It’s different countries, different teams. It’s important to see a new football and a different football as well. And for us, the preparation is important as we work to play against a good team, build something between us, and start in the right way.”

Chelsea got off to a hot start in the match thanks to a trip in the box from Christian Calderon on Chelsea’s Romeo Latvia. Christopher Nkunku rolled the ball into the net and Chelsea were up 1 nil not even two minutes into the game. 

From there, Chelsea dominated possession and had several good chances set up by newly activated player Kiernan Drewsbury-Hall. However, the score remained 1-0 until the 21st minute. A play began in Chelsea’s own end and continued down the left side, ultimately ending with Marc Guiu heading the ball into the net. Chelsea were up 1-0. 

Chelsea continued to knock on the door for the remainder of the half. Noni Madueke was the primary driver, missing a cross-goal shot and setting up a glorious chance that a teammate failed to finish. América recorded one excellent opportunity near the end of the half, but the shot went just wide of the top left corner and they remained without a goal. 

At halftime, Chelsea coach Enzo Maresca substituted out the majority of his starters, including the goaltender. The crowd booed loudly when Enzo Fernandez, who recently returned after Chelsea’s closure of their investigation into a racist chant he sang after his team won the Copa América, took the field. He wasn’t his sharpest either and his coach noted it. 

“You can see he was a bit behind,” Maresca said. “You can see in terms of physical conditioning he was a bit slow. But he only had one or two sessions with us, no more than that. Today, 45 minutes was just to give him another session. For wins like this, we use them as another training session and, for Enzo, today has been a very good training session.”

Fernandez’s rust was covered by his teammates, who continued to press Clúb América but failed to score, even when América’s keeper was entirely out of the goal. But it would be a surprising second direct penalty shot that would give Chelsea its final goal. Goalkeeper Luis Angel Malagon tripped Nkunku in the box and the referee awarded Chelsea the shot. Noni Madueke took the shot and scored Chelsea’s final goal of the night. The Blues won 3-0. 

Community Work

Chelsea’s work in Atlanta wasn’t over yet, though. On Thursday, the Blues went to MARTA’s Lindbergh Station to play soccer with local kids in an event organized by the British Consulate General of Atlanta and Soccer in the Streets. 

It was an opportunity for underserved Atlanta youth to learn about the beautiful game from some of the world’s best. 

“It’s important for us to do this type of experience [to] become close to the fans and to the young guy,” Gusto said. 

It’s equally important for Chelsea Wood, Soccer in the Street’s director of operations and programming. Chelsea FC reached out to Soccer in the Streets to set up this program for the local children.

“I think just the birth of the game has kind of promoted this international camaraderie and partnership,” Wood said. “So Chelsea FC has come to the city of Atlanta. … Our big thing at soccer in the streets is access, so the fact that our kids got high quality access to Premier League training has been amazing, amazing. But we’re really excited to see where this grows, especially with the FIFA Club Cup next year, and then the World Cup coming the year after.” 

Soccer in the Streets is also on a mission, partnered with MARTA, to build soccer fields next to ten MARTA stations, which allows easy access to the fields for teams to play there. So far, six have been built. 

Atlanta’s partnership with the Premier League is building. Last year, Newcastle United came to Atlanta. This year, it was Chelsea FC. Wood hopes that next year and for years to come, Premier League teams will play a game here and help their mission of growing the game for Atlanta. 

“The most important thing, in terms of the road to the World Cup, is that we connect our community here in Atlanta,” Wood said. “It is one of the most diverse cities and to be able to bring an entire world in a city together through the game of soccer is really powerful. So we’re really excited to partner with the Premier League, Chelsea FC, Newcastle United and to see where that goes.”

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Rough Draft Atlanta.