Enzo Maresca Praises Chelsea’s ‘Ugly’ Win Over Benfica

Enzo Maresca applauded the resilience of his Chelsea side after they secured a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Benfica in the Champions League.

The decisive moment came in the first half when Richard Ríos inadvertently diverted the ball into his own net, giving Chelsea their opening points of the group stage following defeat to Bayern Munich in their opening fixture.

The Blues had to finish the match with ten men after substitute João Pedro received a second yellow card in stoppage time, but they held firm to deny José Mourinho a winning return to Stamford Bridge, where he famously won three Premier League titles across two spells.

Maresca admitted the performance was far from flawless, but he emphasised the importance of showing different qualities in order to get the result.

“We needed the win, the three points, for different reasons,” he said.

“In the first half, we controlled the game, we scored the goal, we created more chances and didn’t concede much apart from two or three transitions, which is normal. In the second half, for different reasons, we dropped.

“We had players out there who are not 100 per cent, but they are playing because we have seven or eight players unavailable. Still, it was good to win tonight. Sometimes you need to learn to win in an ugly way, like in the last ten minutes.”

The Italian coach stressed how vital it was for Chelsea to get their campaign up and running and hinted at the importance of recovering key players as the group stage continues.

“We have six more games,” Maresca added. “We’ll see if we can recover the injured players, which is very important for us. First of all, the target is to progress to the next stage, but if we can finish in the top four, that would be very good for us.”