Chelsea’s crucial Club World Cup match vs. Espérance will go on despite Philly heat making it ‘almost impossible to train’

Tuesday’s FIFA Club World Cup game between England’s Chelsea and Tunisia’s Espérance at Lincoln Financial Field will go on as scheduled, despite the forecast calling for a temperature of 93 degrees at kickoff (9 p.m., DAZN).

FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, does not usually move kickoff times just for heat. It would not postpone this game, partly because it’s already a nighttime start and partly because the teams will be on the move on Wednesday. One of the two will advance to a round of 16 game on Saturday in Charlotte, N.C., while the other will be out of the tournament.

When Chelsea’s practice on Monday at Subaru Park began at around 10:45 a.m., the temperatures were already in the 90s. The sprinklers stayed on for a while as the players got going, with an assist from Union grounds crew veterans John Torres and Mark Mello. There were also big misting fans on the sidelines.

“It’s almost impossible to train, to make a session, because of the weather,” Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said. ”Now we are trying just to save energy for the game. This morning’s session has been very, very short — it has been just about [Tuesday’s] game, plan for [Tuesday], and that’s it.”

The English media are always quick to jump on hot weather because they rarely see it, and they did so again on Monday.

Still, the conditions are a genuine concern, from fans not wanting to leave their air-conditioning at home to the players who have to take the worst of it. So there were lots of questions for Maresca on the subject.

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“It’s not about excuses, it’s about reality,” he said. “It’s an excuse when it’s not hot and we say that it’s hot. … But if [it’s] hot, it’s hot, and it’s difficult to work with this temperature. But we are here, we are trying to do our best, and we’re going to try to win [Tuesday’s] game — this is the only thing that we can say and we can do.”

For the record, the Union were on the practice fields at the same hour as Chelsea’s session, and a spokesperson said they didn’t alter their routine much as they returned from a week off. Then again, American teams are more used to this kind of weather.

Espérance chose to practice in the evening, starting their session at Penn’s soccer facility at 8 p.m.

“We will both be playing in the same circumstances,” manager Maher Kanzari said. “So the heat will be felt by Chelsea and by us as well. There is no advantage for one team compared to the other, so hopefully they will be able to adapt.”

But as he sat in the Linc’s air-conditioned media room, he couldn’t help joking: “We will take the AC with us.”

There have been many heat-related controversies in this tournament, as FIFA contends with the American summer for the first time since the 1994 men’s World Cup was played here.

On the opening weekend, temperatures reached 104 on the field at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. Though the stadium’s grand bowl is a great college football setting in January — and a great soccer setting at any time other than the peak of a heat wave — it was a problem this time.

Fans complained that a rule allowing empty bottles or sealed water bottles was not followed by some security, and bottled water was not for sale at enough concession stands. There were also reports of fans and journalists being treated for heat exhaustion.

That rule on water bottles was also supposed to be in effect at Lincoln Financial Field for this past Sunday’s game, where temperatures reached the high 80s. But some fans told The Inquirer on social media that security did not allow bottles in.

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A day earlier in Cincinnati, the bench players on Germany’s Borussia Dortmund spent the first half of their game in the locker room instead of on the sideline because temperatures were nearing 90. The team’s English-language social media account posted a picture of them there, and said: “Never seen that before, but in this heat, it absolutely makes sense.”

Further problems are expected in the next few days. On Tuesday, Nashville was at 95 when Boca Juniors vs. Auckland City kicked off at 2 p.m. Central Time, and Charlotte was at 97 when Bayern Munich vs. Benfica kicked off at 3 p.m. Eastern — on top of the usual humidity in both cities.

Bayern followed Dortmund’s lead in having its bench players spend some of the game in the locker room instead of outside. During the first half, a Benfica player had to be given an ice pack on the field after going down in the heat.

Afternoon games are set for Cincinnati and Miami on Wednesday, then Washington and Orlando on Thursday, before the heat wave finally breaks.

In Philadelphia, the worst of it is expected to leave town on Thursday, just in time for another late-night kickoff between Spain’s Real Madrid and Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg (9 p.m., DAZN). That game should draw the biggest crowd yet at the Linc in the Club World Cup, because star-studded Madrid is the world’s most popular club team.

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The two games after that will still be hot, but hopefully not unbearable. The round of 16 game Saturday at noon, an all-Brazilian matchup of Palmeiras and Botafogo, should see temperatures in the mid-to-high 80s. The July 4 quarterfinal will be a 9 p.m. kickoff on a day with an expected high of 87.

The only previous time FIFA has had to contend with extreme heat was in 2022, when it planned long in advance to move the entirety of that year’s men’s World Cup in Qatar from the summer to the winter.