In a FIFA Club World Cup where criticism — about MetLife Stadium field conditions, about heat, about start times — created just a much buzz as anything that transpired on the pitch, a feel-good, underdog story still made it all the way to East Rutherford for a 3 p.m. semifinal on a day where the temperature hit the mid-90s.
Everything that needed to get fixed before the World Cup arrives next year percolated in the background Tuesday. If this was all a test run for 2026, then those concerns will be the lasting images that linger.
And then former Fluminense forward João Pedro — playing his first matches for Chelsea after signing a deal earlier this month — spoiled the Brazilian club’s unexpected run through group stage, the Round of 16 and the quarterfinal with a pair of goals, lifting Chelsea to a 2-0 win Tuesday and a chance to clinch a title Sunday in the tournament with a $1 billion prize pool.
Pedro’s deal with Chelsea — for eight years and approximately $82 million, according to ESPN — became official just six days before the semifinal match, and he made his lone appearance with the club during their quarterfinal win over Palmeiras.
Then, in the 18th minute, Pedro Neto’s shot ricocheted off a Fluminense player and landed right on Pedro’s foot just outside the 18-yard box, allowing him to send a ball that curled just inside the upper-right corner of the net.
Fluminense came close to equalizing on multiple occasions. Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella barely kept the ball from crossing over the goal line at one point in the first half, and Fluminense nearly earned a penalty on a Trevoh Chalobah handball before VAR overturned the call. After one attack in the second half, though, Pedro ripped a shot that went off the crossbar and in to give Chelsea a two-goal advantage.
Subdued celebrations followed both goals. Pedro told reporters Monday that, as is traditionally the case, he didn’t plan to celebrate a goal against Fluminense. It was the club that developed him at the youth levels, and in 2019, he made his senior debut before embarking on a European soccer journey that led him to Watford, Brighton and Hove Albion and then, ultimately, Chelsea.
He became the latest splash by the club, joining a list that’d hit $1.3 billion across five transfer windows under new owner Todd Boehly — who also owns part of the Dodgers — and his group, according to Associated Press numbers at the time.
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And Tuesday, Pedro’s goals stunned Fluminense fans trying to will their group back to the final for a second consecutive Club World Cup. Some turned the blue New Jersey Transit walls into makeshift drums on the 1:05 p.m. train out of Penn Station, trying to keep their balance on the stairs and wiping sweat from their foreheads in between chants.
For the early part of the match, they watched Fluminense, which NBC Sports reported has already earned $60.83 million in prize money, have a chance against Goliath. They clung to thoughts and dreams of a win that’d allow them to face the winner of two more Goliaths — Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid — on Sunday in the final.
But then Pedro ensured that Chelsea, after years of falling short despite the spending sprees that followed their 2020-21 Champions League title, would have a chance to fix everything that has gone wrong the last few years.