Chelsea-Flamengo will be a party in the stands and reunion of friends on the field

Flamengo manager Filipe Luis and midfielder Jorginho played for Chelsea in the past, and Chelsea midfielder Andrey Santos played against Luis in Brazil. Over 50,000 fans are expected at Friday's game.

Flamengo manager Filipe Luis played for Chelsea, and on Friday he'll coach against his old team in the Club World Cup.Read moreJonathan Tannenwald / Staff

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published June 19, 2025, 6:31 p.m. ET

Friday’s Club World Cup game between England’s Chelsea and Brazil’s Flamengo, one of the most-anticipated matchups in Philadelphia (2 p.m., TNT, DAZN), won’t just be a party for the over 50,000 fans expected at Lincoln Financial Field.

For some of the players and coaches involved, it will be something of a reunion.

Flamengo manager Filipe Luis spent the 2014-15 Premier League season with Chelsea, one of seven clubs the Brazilian midfielder played for in his 20 years as a pro. Though it’s been a decade since he last wore the London club’s famed blue jerseys, he still has fond memories of winning the Premier League and League Cup titles.

“I have amazing memories from Chelsea, from my time in London that I spent in this amazing club,“ said Luis, who’s 39 years old and just over eight months into life as a first-team manager. “Two titles in one season, and I was really happy there.”

Luis didn’t play as much as he wanted to there, so he ended up leaving after just one season. But these days, his reflections are positive.

“It was an amazing experience to play in the Premier League, to play for Chelsea, and I have a lot of friends there,” he said. “I have a lot of friends in the club and the city as well. So it will be a special moment for me.”

Midfielder Jorginho also played for Chelsea, for five season from 2018 to 2023. He then moved across London to Arsenal, where he spent 2½ seasons before joining Flamengo at the start of this month. The 33-year-old spoke Wednesday with reporters at Flamengo’s training base for the tournament, Stockton University in Galloway, N.J., near Atlantic City.

“Playing against a team you’ve already played for is always a nice feeling, seeing your friends again,” he said, though Chelsea has turned its roster over so much since he left that few friends likely remain. Defenders Reece James and Marc Cucurella and midfielder Enzo Fernández are the biggest names still around.

“I haven’t had any direct contact because everything has been happening so fast that my phone is going crazy,” Jorginho said. “They are top-level players who I had the pleasure of working with, and I root for them — but not in this game. They are good people, and it will be great to be able to see them again.”

Across the field, Chelsea’s Andrey Santos grew up in Rio de Janeiro, where Flamengo is based. He knows the majority of Friday’s crowd will be wearing black-and-red shirts. But his team was across town, Vasco da Gama, and Flamengo is their biggest rival. It’s called O Clássico dos Milhões, the Derby of the Millions, because that’s how many fans the two teams have.

So the 21-year-old midfielder is ready to get a double earful from the Flamengo fans, and he laughed as he talked about it.

“I know it’s many people from Brazil here,” Santos said. “The supporters, the fans from Brazil, are amazing, so we have to be concentrated and do our work. … Of course, I think when I come on the pitch or to warm up, people [will] say not good things about me. But no problem. It happens, it’s football, and it’s normal for me.”

Santos played Flamengo four times over the years before moving abroad. In the first of them, in March 2022, Luis was among the players across the field. (Remarkably, former Union centerback flop Anderson Conceição was on the field, too.)

Santos still remembers that game and playing against a rugged defender in Luis.

“He was so strong, so hard to play against,” Santos said. “Now he’s the coach — and now I think I’m more prepared.”

Luis, in turn, said: “of course I remember him.” He also noted that he played six times against current Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca when both were in Spain.

Union prospects enjoy having new neighbors

Though the Union’s first team is off this week as part of a MLS-wide break in the schedule, the club’s reserve squad is still at work. It was out in the heat on one of the practice fields Thursday morning while Chelsea’s players trained inside Subaru Park, and some got the treat of joining Chelsea’s players for a scrimmage.

That was closed to the media, but the Union welcomed some of the visiting media over to the practice field to watch the players who stayed there. One of them, forward Stas Korzeniowski, stopped by to share his thoughts.

“It’s not often that you’re training beside a Premier League team, a team that you watch from your couch on a Saturday or Sunday morning,” he said. “We haven’t been able to see them in their training, but they’re a professional program, top tier of professionalism. So it’s super cool to see their operations, to be around it, and just get firsthand exposure to that, because it’s not every day you come into contact with that type of elite program.”

A native of Skillman, N.J., just northwest of Princeton, Korzeniowski has lived in Philadelphia since starting his college career at Penn. He’s a rare example of a college draft pick having success in the Union’s pipeline, with two goals in seven games since signing his first pro contract this year.

In his down time this week, he has enjoyed watching the vibrancy of fans who’ve come to the city from around the world to support teams here.

“It’s a unique culture everywhere else, the way soccer is celebrated, and for that to migrate here is super nice to have,” he said. “To see how the American people are really embracing it, filling up stadiums, looking forward to this competition, it’s cool. It’s what we want as soccer players: we want that type of exposure, we want that type of enthusiasm and energy, and buzz around the soccer scene here.”

Miami’s historic upset

Inter Miami pulled off the biggest upset of the Club World Cup so far on Thursday, taking down Portugal’s Porto, 2-1, in Atlanta. It’s the first time a MLS team has beaten a European team in any official competition, and it will be one of the defining headlines of the group stage.

Porto’s Samuel Aghehowa opened the scoring with a penalty kick in the eighth minute, then Miami’s Telasco Segovia equalized in the 47th, and superstar Lionel Messi scored the winner with a trademark brilliant free kick in the 54th.

After opening the tournament with a scoreless tie against Egypt’s Al Ahly, the Herons now stand a good chance of advancing to the knockout rounds.

“This is a very big win for us,” Messi told the DAZN broadcast after the game, stating the obvious but no doubt correct. “It took a great effort from the whole team — everyone played well. … I’m very happy, because we left the first game a little bitter after feeling we could have won that one.”