“No” – Enzo Maresca says Chelsea’s target is not to win Champions League next season | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca’s team have won the Conference League after an impressive second half against Betis in Poland tonight, but already the questions are about the future.

Maresca on Club World Cup plans for next month

Enzo Maresca celebrates with the Conference League trophy. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

First up he was asked about the Club World Cup, which takes place next month. There’s a short break now, before the group reconvene and get ready for the American trip.

“Now we have 10 days off. Ten days where we need to recover energy,” the coach said.

“And then we’re going to start the Club World Cup. The target, to be honest, is go game by game. Try to go step by step. But in this moment, we don’t have any target for the Club World Cup. Now the only target is to recover energy because the season has been very long. Don’t forget that we started the conference in the play-off, not even in the group. And it has been a long season.”

Maresca plays down Champions League ambitions

The Chelsea coach was then asked about what his ambitions were for the Champions League next season, having finally qualified for the top European trophy.

“Is the target to win that?,” he was asked, rather cheekily by a member of the press.

“No,” Maresca laughed in response.

We understand that winning the Champions League is a long way off for a team that hasn’t even been able to qualify for the tournament for a few years, but still, we’d like a little more ambition than that, Enzo! Just say “yes, that’s the long term target, but first of all we need to establish ourselves at this level.”

Much like when he kept playing down his team’s ambitions earlier this season, it just feels self defeating.