{"id":656165,"date":"2025-06-25T14:58:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=656165"},"modified":"2025-06-25T14:58:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:58:21","slug":"club-world-cup-chelsea-liam-delap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/25\/club-world-cup-chelsea-liam-delap\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea\u2019s Club World Cup Run Has Surprising Implication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/24\/chelsea-close-jamie-gittens-transfer\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Chelsea<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> have navigated their way through the group phase at the Club World Cup, following their comfortable 3-0 win over ES Tunis, thus qualifying for the last 16. Following their win on June 25, it was revealed that the West London club had <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SkySportsPL\/status\/1937912115794162052\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">made \u00a336.5 million<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> by reaching the Round of 16.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea\u2019s Club World Cup Progress Comes With Additional Twist<\/h2>\n<h3>How Liam Delap\u2019s Fee Was Quietly Covered<\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Chelsea have often <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">been criticised<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> over the years for their spending habits, and following their qualification for next season&#8217;s Champions League, the club appear keen on strengthening in key areas, with Liam Delap already joining to improve the attack, while the signing of D\u00e1rio Essugo and the return of <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/19\/enzo-maresca-chelsea-andrey-santos-debut\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Andrey Santos<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> improves the midfield.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/23\/manchester-united-christopher-nkunku-alejandro-garnacho-chelsea\/\" target=\"_self\">Manchester United \u2018Weigh Up\u2019 Swap Deal With Chelsea to Offload \u2018Disrespectful\u2019 Player<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Jamie Gittens has also <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">been linked<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> with joining the Blues. Players will seemingly leave this summer, with <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/football\/story\/_\/id\/45571129\/transfer-rumors-news-man-united-casemiro-cristiano-ronaldo-al-nassr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Noni Madueke<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">one player linked with a move away from Stamford Bridge. The arrival of Delap cost Chelsea <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/c8d64jq0q0jo\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a330m<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, but it appears the Chelsea hierarchy have recouped the fee much quicker than they anticipated. Following their 3-0 win over ES Tunis, Chelsea earned a windfall of \u00a336.5 million by reaching the round of 16.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Chelsea at the Club World Cup and Beyond<\/h3>\n<p>Chelsea have had some bright spots at the Club World Cup, with a dominant first-half showing in their opening game against LAFC, ultimately winning 2-0 with goals from Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/06\/19\/chelsea-rival-joao-pedro\/\" target=\"_self\">Chelsea Set to Compete with Premier League Rival for \u00a370m Forward<\/a><\/p>\n<p>They lost their second game 3-1 to Flamengo, after leading 1-0 and playing some good football in the first half. Chelsea imploded after the break, conceding poor goals and losing substitute Nicholas Jackson to a sending-off after a reckless tackle.<\/p>\n<p>After their 3-0 win on June 25, attention now turns to June 28, where Chelsea will face Portuguese giants Benfica. This will undoubtedly be a test for Maresca&#8217;s men, with Benfica topping a group containing Bayern Munich, Boca Juniors and Auckland City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have navigated their way through the group phase at the Club World Cup, following their comfortable 3-0 win over ES Tunis, thus qualifying for the last 16. Following their win on June 25, it was revealed that the West London club had made \u00a336.5 million by reaching the Round of 16. Chelsea\u2019s Club World [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4106,"featured_media":647828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,11,3],"tags":[7508,1701,8794],"class_list":["post-656165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-chelsea-news","tag-club-world-cup","tag-liam-delap"],"modified_by":"Ricky Carroll, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656167,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656165\/revisions\/656167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}