Club World Cup: PSG coach Luis Enrique shoves Chelsea's João Pedro in face and neck during shoving match after Chelsea rout

Yahoo

a day ago

Tempers flared in the aftermath of Sunday's Club World Cup final and resulted in Paris Saint-Germain coach Luis Enrique shoving Chelsea's João Pedro in the face and neck and onto the ground.
The push was part of a postgame shoving match at midfield following Chelsea's dominant, 3-0 victory at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium to win the inaugural Club World Cup. Chelsea opened a three-goal lead before halftime and kept PSG off the board for the remainder of the match.
Advertisement
When it was over, Chelsea players ran to midfield to celebrate. PSG players were still on the field, and a shoving match ensued. Enrique and Pedro went face to face, and Pedro pushed Enrique away.
Enrique pursued Pedro after the push and shoved him on his face and neck. Pedro fell backward to the ground. Players from both teams then continued to trade shoves before the fracas eventually died down.
A bird's-eye view from Yahoo Sports' Henry Bushnell from the press box captures the entire scene as the midfield celebration eventually escalated into the shoving match.
Enrique: Fracas was 'completely avoidable'
Enrique was asked by reporters about the incident after the game. He said that his goal was to keep things from getting worse.
Advertisement
"This was completely avoidable at the end," he said, via translation from Spanish. "My goal and my objective is always trying to separate the footballers to avoid greater problems.
"There's a lot of tension, a lot of pressure, and there was a whole bunch of pushing that was going on by many people. I think that we should all avoid doing so, and it should not happen again. I reiterate, my intention has always been to avoid any type of situation to get even worse. That was my goal."
.
Enrique went on to note that the postgame extracurriculars were due to "pressure from the match."
Advertisement
'I have no problem expressing my feeling at the end of the game," he continued. "There's a high level of pressure. It's very stressful for all of us. That is rather logical.
"I'm going to make it possible to avoid that my footballers don't go to the extreme. So everybody was involved. I'm telling you, this is not what was best, and this was just the end result of the pressure from the match. And I do not have anything else to add."
It wasn't immediately clear if something specific triggered the fray, but PSG was clearly frustrated after landing on the wrong side of a one-sided match. And Pedro was a centerpiece of the Chelsea onslaught.
Things got heated at the conclusion of Sunday's Club World Cup final.
(Getty Images)
Things got tense after game broke open
Cole Palmer broke things open for Chelsea with two goals in the game's opening 30 minutes. But it was Pedro who put the finishing touches on the offensive outburst with a goal just before halftime for a 3-0 Chelsea lead. He celebrated the goal with a jig.
The rout was on, and things didn't get any better for PSG after the break.
Advertisement
As the game approached its conclusion with the outcome firmly in hand in the final 10 minutes, PSG's João Neves lost his composure. He and Chelsea's Marc Cucurella bumped as they approached the box. Neves grabbed Cucurella by his air from behind and pulled him to the ground.
It wasn't the first time Cucurella's been pulled down by his flowing locks. It probably won't be the last. And it made for an easy decision on VAR review. Neves was issued a red card and ejected from the game for committing "violent conduct."
Minutes later, the game was over, and postmatch shoving ensued.