'Horrible' Djurgarden pitch may prove Chelsea's biggest Conference League threat | OneFootball

The surface at the 3Arena more closely resembles the artificial covering one might find on a green grocer’s market stall

First, he was almost cleaned out by a 130mph serve from world No2 Alexander Zverev, caught in some amusing footage on social media. Then, he was nearly stranded when a massive power cut put lights out across the Iberian Peninsula and sparked transport chaos.

"To be honest, I didn't watch tennis [live] for a long time and the ball was so fast,” Neto laughed of his front-row close shave, though one can imagine making it back to Cobham on time - and thus avoiding the wrath of Enzo Maresca - was probably the greater relief.

Prep: Chelsea players trained at the 3Arena last night

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“I was walking with my girlfriend in the city of Madrid and somehow there were no lights, but luckily we went to the airport and we made it out. The flights were not departing so we were lucky to get out of that - and the next day we were training.”

Neto and the rest of his Chelsea team-mates arrived - without hint of further travel disruption - here in Stockholm last night ahead of this evening’s Conference League semi-final meeting with Djurgarden. Maresca’s pre-match press conference, however, suggested he sees the pitch at the 3Arena as just as big a danger to his players as the side placed only 11th in the early stages of the Swedish top-flight season.

Chelsea know the dangers of iffy pitches, having infamously lost new £58million signing Christopher Nkunku to a serious knee injury during a preseason friendly played on a cabbage patch of a pitch at Chicago’s Soldier Field two summers ago.

Marc Cucurella led a test of the notably low bounce, hurling balls into the air and then watching them land with a disappointing thud

The surface at the 3Arena - dry and hard - more closely resembles the artificial covering one might find on a green grocer’s market stall, though Nkunku will be spared its trepidations, having been left in London with a knock as a precaution. Yet Maresca insists that, despite his concerns, he has little choice but to risk his first-team players, with Sunday’s crucial league meeting with Liverpool an afterthought for now.

“We are not in a moment where we can say we decide to save players for Sunday,” Maresca explained. “This is a semi-final, it's a European competition and we want to be in the final."

Locals say work has been done to improve the surface since it was branded “horrible” by manager Jani Honkavaara following a 0-0 draw against GAIS ten days ago.

In a bid to get a feel for the task, Chelsea opted to train at the 3Arena last night, rather than at their own Cobham base before travelling. Body language in the 15 minutes of the session open to media viewing did not suggest they were impressed with what they found.

Close-up: A view of the pitch lat night

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Marc Cucurella led a test of the notably low bounce, hurling balls into the air in front of a group of team-mates and then watching them land with a disappointing thud. Later, as the goalkeepers played keepy-uppy in their warm-up, several balls died in the surface, skidding on like grubbers on a day five pitch in Karachi.

As far as threats within the Djurgarden team itself are concerned, Maresca says he is well across them, having watched six full matches of tonight’s opponents since his own team’s 1-0 win over Everton on Saturday afternoon.

He is determined that Chelsea “take nothing for granted”, having suffered an inconsequential but still embarrassing home defeat to Legia Warsaw in the quarter-final second-leg, after which captain Reece James accused his team-mates of “disrespecting the competition”.

Come through a unique test tonight and the Blues will be one step closer to winning it.