Delap scores first Chelsea goal as they make Club World Cup knockouts: Live updates and reaction – The New York Times

FIFA Club World Cup
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Chelsea have secured progression to the knockouts at the 2025 Club World Cup after a 3-0 win against Esperance.
Tosin Adarabioyo and Liam Delap got the goals in first-half stoppage time for the Premier League side in Philadelphia. After a less than comfortable first half for Chelsea, they were convincing winners in the second half and Tyrique George added a third seconds before full time.
They have advanced to the last 16 as Group D runners-up and will face Benfica in Charlotte on Saturday.
Flamengo were the winners of the group and closed out with a 1-1 draw against LAFC to set up a meeting with Bayern Munich on Sunday.
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Esperance 0 Chelsea 3 – Liam Delap’s first goal for the club and what to expect from Benfica
Enzo Fernandez was the real star of the show tonight, and he will almost certainly be the talk of the Round of 16 clash too.
The Chelsea captain will be coming up against the team who sold him to Chelsea in January 2023, just weeks after his World Cup success with Argentina in Qatar.
It should be a fun reunion.
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Here is how Group D finished then, which is basically as it started the day.
Flamengo will now face Group C runners-up Bayern Munich in the last 16 — so maybe in this instance, Chelsea won’t mind that it was second and a clash with Benfica.
And to be neat and tidy, it finished 1-1 between Flamengo and LAFC.
So everyone’s happy, right?!
A night off for Marc Cucurella, Levi Colwill, Trevoh Chalobah, Reece James, Cole Palmer, Moises Caicedo and Pedro Neto?
Handy for Chelsea that.
And they now have until Saturday afternoon in the U.S. to prepare to face Benfica in the Round of 16, in Charlotte.
Esperance’s defeat to Chelsea tonight moves them to three wins, six defeats all-time in FIFA Club World Cup matches.
Since failing to win any matches at the 2011 edition, they have at least won one match in each of their last three tournament involvements.
Which is progress.
FT: Esperance 0-3 Chelsea
And with that, the final whistle finally sounds.
It took a couple of minutes at the end of the first half to secure victory. The rest was a cruise for Chelsea.
All in all, that went perfectly for Enzo Maresca. Meanwhile, the Club World Cup was better for having Esperance and their supporters here, I reckon.
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90+7' Esperance 0-3 Chelsea
Chelsea do get their third goal! They break forward, Tyrique George pulls the trigger from a central area and it somehow squirms under Ben Said’s arms.
Poor goalkeeping again, so much so that George can’t even bring himself to celebrate the goal.
“We want seven minutes of additional time”, said absolutely no one inside Lincoln Financial Field.
90+4' Esperance 0-2 Chelsea
A quick reminder that Flamengo have already won Group D with their previous two wins over Chelsea and Esperance, while LAFC were already eliminated.
The only issue to be resolved before these two games kicked off, was who out of these two teams would finish second in the group.
And that will be Chelsea. They’re still looking for a third goal too, albeit leisurely.
And just like that, Flamengo found its own breakthrough.
Wallace Yan, a 20-year-old product of their academy, collected a ball from Jorginho and placed a shot just beyond a diving Hugo Lloris to level things just two minutes after LAFC’s first goal of the tournament. That is Yan’s second straight game with a goal this tournament.
Level again in Orlando, 1-1 now.
Meanwhile in Orlando…
LAFC came into the Club World Cup with one tried-and-true trick: springing a quick break into Denis Bouanga’s stride to spring a one-man transition goal.
Sure enough, Bouanga times his run on a well-executed indirect free kick from inside LAFC’s half, getting one-on-one with goalkeeper Agustin Rossi and comfortably rolling his shot beyond the Argentine.
While the assist goes to free kick taker Timothy Tillman, the goal likely doesn’t happen without Olivier Giroud, standing narrowly offside to give Flamengo’s two-man offside trap a false sense of security as Bouanga began his sprint.
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90+1' Esperance 0-2 Chelsea
I have to say, that penalty drama has been totally out of keeping with a stodgy second half — one where Chelsea have total control and only the smoke from Esperance’s previous fire remained, after it was put out just before half-time.
They have added time to now find a consolation.
There will be SEVEN minutes of it too, with SIX of those probably attributable to the VAR penalty farce a little earlier.
Attendance tonight is 32,967, which is decent again here in Philadelphia.
A VAR check after Nkunku had already lined up the penalty? Come on, FIFA.
79' Esperance 0-2 Chelsea
And now the referee is off to the screen to view it. All while Christopher Nkunku had the ball on the spot ready to take the penalty.
The referee has a look, says it was not a punishable handball and gives a drop ball to the Esperance goalkeeper.
Why isn’t it just the Chelsea corner it should have been?
What a bizarre and amateur few minutes of football officiating.
77' Esperance 0-2 Chelsea
Blimey… Christopher Nkunku is still waiting to take the penalty, while VAR is actually checking the penalty.
Ridiculous.
And to be honest, I really don’t think it was a penalty either.
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76' Esperance 0-2 Chelsea
Oh my, it’s an Andrey Santos shot from range that hits the arm by the side of Yassine Meriah.
That looks incredibly harsh to me.
Christopher Nkunku to take it…
Enzo Maresca is in full load management mode now, withdrawing Delap and Lavia to rapturous applause just before the hour mark and Madueke and Fernandez with a little more than 20 minutes to play.
But there is still something to hold the attention of the Chelsea fans in attendance: a long-awaited competitive debut for Andrey Santos off the bench.
Esperance’s best offensive looks came in the first half and you have to wonder… What if they had taken advantage of them?
A bit more quality in the final third, and maybe we could’ve had a different scoreline before Chelsea rattled off their two first-half finishes.

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