Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech appears to be confident of his team and Corinthians reaching the final of the Fifa Club World Cup in Japan this month or forgot that the European and South American champions will have to face a semi-final before they qualify for the showpiece event.
Cech, 30, was interviewed from Japan by Fifa.com on Friday and made an off-hand comment that seemed to suggest that the final will be the one that the bookies are predicting.
When asked about the competition the Czech international said: “It will be a new tournament for us, we will face a different style with the team from South America. So let’s see what’s going to happen."
Chelsea will head to Japan not in the greatest form, with no win in their last seven Premier League games and having sacked the manager who led them to the European crown. However, Cech believes they can put those woes behind them.
“I’m looking forward to it – it’s a competition I’ve never had a chance to play. Not many people can say ‘I won the Club World Cup’, the special competition of the Champions League winners.
“That’s something you would like to achieve so I’m looking forward to the tournament and I hope, after having missed out on the Super Cup, it will be a trophy we win."
And the stopper believes that winning the Champions League has moved the club on to a new level.
“It puts the club in a different dimension because everybody was saying we are a great club having won all the domestic trophies – FA Cups, League Cups – but this is the one thing everybody kept reminding us about, not the Champions League.
“We wanted to make sure that we got it one day. If you keep reaching the semi-finals, and we were unlucky in Moscow [in the 2008 final against Manchester United] to have lost the game, then you believe that one day it will come.
“It came in the year where I think everybody outside expected it the least, but we believed we had a good campaign."
Chelsea will play the winner of Ulsan Hyundai, of South Korea, and CF Monterrey, of Mexico, in the semi-final on 13th December in Yokohama.
