Chelsea have barely had any training since returning from the three-week holiday following our Club World Cup victory, but we looked quite fit and ready already as we took on Bayer Leverkusen in the first (of just two) preseason friendlies before the start of the season next weekend.
Enzo Maresca chose an interesting mix of first-teamers, backups, and newcomers to start the game, but it was a quite delicious mix at times, especially with Estêvão and Cole Palmer pulling the strings and Moisés Caicedo and Andrey Santos running the midfield.
And it didn’t take long to find the breakthrough, with the wonderboy from Brazil in the right place at the right time to put in a rebound to open his (preseason) account less than 20 minutes into his first (preseason) Chelsea game. If that’s a sign of things to come, we’re in for some fun.
Chelsea continued to play some, at times, scintillating football, but a second goal would elude us. Leverkusen meanwhile offered very little, with Filip Jörgensen having to make just one save in the first half as we’d head into the break up one.
Maresca started ringing the changes to get some minutes for others as well, and some of the fluidity went out of our play. Still, Jamie Gittens looked sprightly and bright and offered a consistent threat down the left as Estêvão moved central.
Just before the end, João Pedro put the cherry on top of this rather tasty preseason cake with yet another excellent finish, to make it 2-0.