Enzo Maresca lamented the delay that saw Chelsea’s Club World Cup win over Benfica last over four hours.
The Blues set up a quarter-final against Palmeiras as they beat 10-man Benfica 4-1 in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday with what Maresca described as a “top” performance.
Chelsea led 1-0 through Reece James’s free-kick when, with just four minutes of normal time remaining, the referee signalled the players to leave the pitch due to an adverse weather warning.
Following lightning and a thunderstorm, the match restarted after a delay of almost two hours. In stoppage time, Malo Gusto conceded a penalty for a handball which Angel Di Maria scored to force extra time.
Benfica had Gianluca Prestianni sent off two minutes into extra time and paid a heavy price as Christopher Nkunku, Pedro Neto and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall all scored to send Chelsea through to the last eight with an eventually commanding victory.
“I’m very proud,” said Maresca. “The performance, for me, was top. They stopped the game and then it is a completely different game. When you are inside for more than one hour, it is not easy.
“1-1, and then we continued to play. The reward has been one that we deserved. We are in the last eight teams in the competition and we are very happy.”
Asked whether he felt the penalty Di Maria scored ought to have been given, Maresca replied: “The rule is that it’s no foul. The penalty comes from a free-kick that is no foul. The handball yes. But it’s no free-kick.
“Sometimes it’s better if you don’t say what you think about the referee, because overall today we deserved to win the game. Better to talk about the team than the referee. Now we need to recover the players and recover energy and go again.”
