Chelsea must succeed vs. Espérance to avoid an embarrassing exit from the Club World Cup

So far in the FIFA Club World Cup, each of the four games in Philadelphia has been its own story — especially for the fans who’ve come here from all over the world.

But now things have really become about the tournament, not just the scene.

For as much as England’s Chelsea is favored to beat Tunisia’s Espérance on Tuesday (9 p.m., DAZN), the English giant doesn’t have much choice. The Blues’ loss to Flamengo on Friday gave the Brazilian club first place in the group, making this matchup a duel for second — and thus an elimination game.

Chelsea and Espérance each have one win and one loss so far — they both beat Los Angeles FC and lost to Flamengo — and Chelsea has the better goal difference (0 to minus-1). So the Blues only need a tie to advance. But that would be embarrassing enough for a team of its stature, and a huge result for Espérance, despite elimination.

Does that make for some old-fashioned pressure in this newly fashioned tournament?

“Oh, yeah,” Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said in his news conference Monday afternoon at the Linc. “When you are the Chelsea manager or a Chelsea player, any game you don’t win, you are a headline. … We are used to that.”

Veteran defender Marc Cucurella has fended off many upset bids in recent times: from Spain’s European Championship win a year ago to Chelsea’s UEFA Conference League title this past season. For as talented as this Blues squad is, it’s also pretty young, so the experience of the 26-year-old left back will matter.

“It depends on us,” he said. “We want to be in the next round, and that’s it. … We know that [Tuesday] will be a final, we have to give everything, and we’re only going to think about winning the next game.”

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If anything is a safe bet, it’s that neutrals at the Linc will be on Espérance’s side, along with the 3,000 fans who flew over from Tunisia. They were just as lively as the Flamengo fans at their first game here, and should be again for their first matchup against a European team in four Club World Cup trips.

“It will be a historic game,” Espérance manager Maher Kanzari said. “We will be well-prepared, especially mentally. Everyone is waiting for this game, and we are really proud of what we have achieved so far. Hopefully, we will do what it takes.”

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

“It’s almost impossible to train, to make a session, because of the weather,” 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.”

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It will help some that Tuesday’s kickoff is at night, after a day when the high temperature is expected to hit 99. But the sun being down might only be of limited help, because the forecast for kickoff time is still 92 with high humidity.

The English media are always quick to jump on hot weather, because they rarely see it. But 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 to Maresca on the subject.

“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 at night, holding a session at Penn’s soccer facility that was scheduled to start at 8 p.m.

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Brazil’s Botafogo became the first team to book a place in Saturday’s round of 16 game at the Linc (noon, DAZN) by finishing second in Group B.

Reigning European champions Paris Saint-Germain took first place thanks to a 2-0 win over the Seattle Sounders, while Botafogo lost to Spain’s Atlético Madrid, 1-0.

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Those results left PSG, Botafogo, and Atlético tied with six points each. The first tiebreaker was head-to-head results, and each team had one win and one loss against the other. The second tiebreaker was goal difference in those games: PSG beat Atlético 4-0, Botafogo beat PSG 1-0, then Atlético beat Botafogo.

That left PSG’s goal difference at +3, Botafogo’s at 0, and Atlético’s at -1 — making the Spanish club the first big European team to be knocked out.

Had Botafogo tied or beaten Atlético, PSG would have come here, and become the first reigning European champion to play a game in the region since Chelsea faced the MLS All-Stars at Subaru Park in 2012.

The other team in the round of 16 game here will also be Brazilian, Group A winner Palmeiras. They came back from 2-0 down late in the second half against Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami to grab a 2-2 tie.

Had Miami held on for the win, Messi would have come here, which would have made for quite a scene. There will still be a scene with two big Brazilian clubs’ fan bases filling the stands — and Palmeiras’ green-and-white colors will look right at home. But it won’t be what Messi would have brought.

Miami will instead play PSG in Atlanta on Sunday (noon, TNT, Univision, DAZN), which means Messi will face the team he left to come to MLS in 2023.