Club World Cup final: How Chelsea, PSG compare; who will win?

It's the FIFA Club World Cup final on Sunday, and Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea will battle it out at MetLife Stadium for the honor of becoming the first winner of the 32-team tournament.

After a monthlong competition in the United States, which has at times been overshadowed by low attendance, weather-enforced delays and extreme heat, as well as the pre-tournament concerns of player burnout, either UEFA Champions League winners PSG or Premier League giants Chelsea will emerge as world champions this weekend.

Luis Enrique's PSG have already won Ligue 1, the Coupe de France and Champions League this year, while Enzo Maresca's Chelsea are aiming to become the first club to win every major honor, having completed the European set with their UEFA Conference League win in May, by lifting the Club World Cup trophy. So how will it play out at MetLife, and who are the players to watch out for on Sunday?

PSG are the undisputed best team in the world right now. Their 5-0 Champions League final win against Inter Milan in Munich was the biggest winning margin for a team becoming champions of Europe, and they've reached the final of this competition by blowing away Real Madrid in a 4-0 semifinal victory that could, and should, have ended with a heavier defeat for the LaLiga giants.

So, when you consider that Chelsea secured Champions League qualification via the Premier League only on the final day of the 2024-25 season before winning the Conference League, UEFA's third-tier competition, the two teams are miles apart on paper. But Maresca's team has grown into the competition, and Chelsea are just 90 minutes away from becoming world champions.

PSG should win, but Chelsea have shown that they know how to get the job done, so this game will be closer than many expect.

PSG have been the outstanding team of the Club World Cup, recording wins against fellow European heavyweights Atlético Madrid (4-0), Bayern Munich (2-0) and Real Madrid (4-0) to make it to the final. They haven't been invincible, though.

A 1-0 defeat against Copa Libertadores champions Botafogo in the group stage showed that PSG could be beaten, although Luis Enrique may point to his team being without star players Ousmane Dembélé, João Neves, Fabián Ruiz and Marquinhos for that game.

PSG's consistent performance in the Champions League throughout the four-year qualification period for the Club World Cup secured their place in the tournament, but their Champions League final success against Inter Milan in May confirmed their status as the team to beat in the U.S. They have lived up to that billing so far, and Luis Enrique even had the luxury of substituting Dembélé, Ruiz, Désiré Doué and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in the second half of the semifinal win against Real to conserve their energy for the final.

Chelsea needed a win in their final group game against Esperance Sportive de Tunis to reach the knockout stages after a 3-1 defeat against Flamengo put their progression at risk. Since reaching the round of 16, though, Chelsea have had luck on their side in terms of enjoying a favorable route to the final.

Bayern's surprise group-stage loss to Benfica meant that Chelsea avoided the Bundesliga giants and faced the Portuguese team in the round of 16. eventually winning 4-1 after extra time in Charlotte, North Carolina. Chelsea then defeated Brazilian teams Palmeiras (2-1) and Fluminense (2-0) to secure a clash against PSG in the final.

Chelsea earned their Club World Cup spot by virtue of winning the Champions League in 2021 -- the start of the four-year qualification period -- but their absence from Europe's top club competition for the past two years highlights how the Stamford Bridge team sneaked into the tournament by its achievements under a different coach and ownership group four years ago.

Where do you start with PSG? They are a team of outstanding individual talent, but their success lies in all of those players being willing and able to match their talent with supreme work rate and team ethic.

Dembélé is the star player in Luis Enrique's team, though, and the France forward is now the clear favorite to win this year's Ballon d'Or. The 28-year-old has scored 35 goals and registered 14 assists in 52 appearances for PSG this season, and has dispelled all previous doubts over his ability to stay fit and reach his potential.

He had a tough 5-½ seasons at Barcelona following a big-money move from Borussia Dortmund in 2018, but since moving to Paris in 2023, Dembélé has lived up to all of the hype.

Even if Chelsea can stop Dembélé, though, they will then have to stop Kvaratskhelia and Doué on the wings, or somehow overpower the midfield of Ruiz, Vitinha and Neves. And then there are the two fullbacks, Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes, who are the best in the world at their position right now.

Until two weeks ago, it was all about Cole Palmer for Chelsea. When the former Manchester City forward plays well, he usually scores and Chelsea tend to win.

But while Palmer, 23, is still the man who can take Maresca's team to another level, £55 million summer signing João Pedro has arrived to share the load with Palmer and give Chelsea a sharper cutting edge up front. The former Brighton & Hove Albion forward said he was "on the beach" in Brazil when the Chelsea deal was done halfway through the tournament, but he made an immediate impact by scoring twice against former team Fluminense in the semifinal.

With Chelsea also adding former Ipswich Town striker Liam Delap and ex-Borussia Dortmund winger Jamie Gittens to their squad this summer, Maresca has plenty of attacking options, but the players who could hurt PSG are Palmer and João Pedro.

One key element for Chelsea is the fitness of midfielder Moisés Caicedo, who limped out of the semifinal with an ankle injury. If he is unfit to face PSG, that will make stopping their midfield unit almost impossible.

Luis Enrique's PSG play a 4-3-3 formation that is built around their midfield axis of Neves, Vitinha and Ruiz. The challenge for Maresca will be about how Chelsea can disrupt that midfield, especially as his 4-2-3-1 formation will leave the Blues outnumbered in the center of the pitch.

PSG are so strong in the midfield area that Maresca will almost certainly have to tweak his system to be able to compete with the European champions. PSG keep the ball so well that it would be incredibly risky if Maresca sticks with his two-man midfield -- a risk that will be exacerbated if Caicedo fails to overcome his injury.

But it is not just about stopping PSG in midfield. Their attacking fullbacks Hakimi and Mendes, in tandem with wingers Doué and Kvaratskhelia, will make life incredibly tough for Chelsea's Marc Cucurella and Reece James. Both Cucurella and James like to attack, but they will have to stay back to nullify PSG's threat out wide.

Luis Enrique was happy to see Kylian Mbappé leave PSG a year ago, when the forward ran down his contract to join Real Madrid as a free agent. The manager tried and failed to make Mbappé work harder for the team -- the failure was probably on Mbappé's part rather than Luis Enrique's -- so his departure was regarded as no great loss because it enabled the coach to build a team of players who work incredibly hard for the side.

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That is the beauty of this PSG team. They can be mesmerizing to watch with their passing and dribbling, but it is all built on the rock-solid foundation of teamwork.

At halftime in the semifinal, FIFA produced a stat that showed that Madrid's average ball recovery time was 45 seconds. PSG's number was 23.

In a nutshell, that said everything. The best team in the world was working twice as hard as its opponents. That's why PSG are so good.

This is such a tough challenge for Chelsea. If you had to pick a combined team from the two sides, it would be difficult to justify selecting any Chelsea player ahead of his PSG counterpart.

But football can be, and often is, unpredictable, so Chelsea have a puncher's chance on Sunday.

If they are to win, they will need to score early and then outrun Luis Enrique's team in every department. They will also have to win the midfield battle.

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Mistakes at the back have been an issue for Chelsea, especially in goal, but they will have to cut out all the lapses of concentration to have a hope of winning the game. Even if they do all of the above, they still will need a moment of genius from Palmer or João Pedro.

Sounds almost impossible, right? That's the challenge facing Chelsea, but they still have a chance.

It has to be PSG. They are, by some distance, the best team in the world right now. They might even be the best side since Pep Guardiola's great Barcelona team of 2009 through 2011.

In three games against strong European opposition at this tournament, PSG have scored 10 goals and conceded none, and Chelsea are not as strong as the Atlético, Bayern and Madrid sides that PSG have beaten. Chelsea are a young team led by a young coach, and they are still a work in progress, so it could be a very difficult afternoon on Sunday.

But those are the levels in a Club World Cup final, and PSG are in a league of their own, so they will win, and they will win comfortably.

Scoreline: 3-0