Chelsea and N'Golo Kante made football history with FIFA Club World Cup win vs Palmeiras | OneFootball

Chelsea held their nerve to secure FIFA Club World Cup glory against Palmeiras on Saturday.

The Blues exorcised the demons of their infamous 2012 defeat to Corinthians by ensuring that they didn’t let a second chance to become men’s club world champions pass them by.

However, that’s not to say that victory in Abu Dhabi was an easy task as the game went all the way to extra time with Romelu Lukaku and Raphael Veiga having exchanged goals in the regulation 90 minutes.

Chelsea win FIFA Club World Cup

But alas, Chelsea didn’t need a penalty shootout to secure silverware as they did in the UEFA Super Cup with Kai Havertz holding his nerve to score a deciding spot-kick after 117 minutes.

While the Club World Cup certainly doesn’t carry the gravity and reverence of most other major club competitions, you could nevertheless sense the sheer joy from Chelsea at finally getting their hands on it.

After all, not only were the west London club out to right the wrongs of their final defeat in 2012, but they were also looking to make history by winning the one major title that had eluded them.

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Let’s start easy: who’s this iconic character?

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Which European clubs have completed the set?

In fact, according to Miguel Delaney, victory for Chelsea meant that they became only the fifth European club in the history of the men’s game to have won every major honour that has been available to them.

The Blues have now won the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup, Europa League, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and the Community Shield if you include that too.

The only other clubs to feature in this remarkable ensemble of footballing institutions are Juventus, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Ajax.

Real Madrid and Liverpool are held back by the fact that they have never won the Cup Winners’ Cup, which, although now discontinued, was most certainly revered as a major honour in its day.

Meanwhile, AC Milan and Barcelona don’t quite make the cut having never won the Europa League – or UEFA Cup under its previous guise – despite having hoovered up all the other necessary honours.

Naturally, the definition of a major title is ultimately a subjective one, but casting the widest possible net within reason ultimately ensures that the entry requirements are as satisfactorily stringent as possible.

Kante joins exclusive club of players

But even if you want to be cynical about what may or may not qualify as a major honour, we can surely be in agreement about N’Golo Kante’s achievement of having joined an exclusive club of players.

After all, according to Squawka, Kante is only the fourth player to have won the Premier League, Champions League, Club World Cup and World Cup during their careers.

And he’s the only player to do so without ever having played for Barcelona with Gerard Pique, Pedro and Thierry Henry rounding off one of the most exclusive batch of players in the beautiful game.

It really is the cherry on the cake for Kante in what has already been a thoroughly-decorated career with only the League Cup, which he can win in just a few weeks’ time, noticeably missing from his roster.

Nevertheless, whichever way you look at it and however you classify a major honour, the moral of the story is that Chelsea and Kante’s victory in Abu Dhabi was most certainly a historic one.

Chelsea 2-1 Palmeiras Match Reaction (Football Terrace)