Two minutes into the second half at Athens Olympic Stadium, a chasm suddenly opened in the middle of Chelsea’s defence and Panathinaikos winger Facundo Pellistri, a Uruguayan international on the books at Manchester United until last summer, charged purposefully into an ocean of space and directly towards Filip Jorgensen’s goal.
In a truly competitive football match this scenario would constitute real jeopardy — particularly with Chelsea only 1-0 up at the time — but the mood of the moment was something closer to mild intrigue, and it was gone in seconds. The recovering Benoit Badiashile and Renato Veiga forced Pellistri to check his run before he reached the Chelsea penalty area and he sloppily gave the ball away as he tried to offload it to a teammate.
Within two minutes Chelsea worked the ball forward unimpeded to the right flank, where Pedro Neto easily beat his man and floated a cross to the back post. Mykhailo Mudryk arrived and headed it into an empty net, doubling the visitors’ lead and ending any pretence of this Europa Conference League game as a contest with more than 40 minutes left to play.
To say Chelsea cruised to victory against Panathinaikos would be a severe understatement. Joao Felix did whatever he wanted, Mudryk had his best game for the club and Christopher Nkunku maintained his impressive goals-per-minute ratio with a nerveless penalty despite rarely having to break into a sprint. The hardest working person in Athens Olympic Stadium might have been the Gate 13 ultra who dutifully harassed the away side with a green laser pointer all night despite numerous stern warnings to stop from the stadium announcer.
The most charitable explanation for Panathinaikos’ limp display is that they were without several key players on the night and understandably affected by the tragic death of George Baldock, who was the subject of numerous heartfelt tributes from both sets of players and supporters ahead of kick-off. That is undoubtedly part of the picture, but there was something else, too.
According to Transfermarkt, Panathinaikos have the fourth-highest squad market value (€107.5million) of the 36 teams in UEFA’s third-tier competition. Gent, Chelsea’s first Europa Conference League opponents earlier this month, rank sixth in the same table (€68million). There are no prizes for guessing which club is first by a galactic distance, and it should be no real surprise that neither match felt remotely competitive.
Enzo Maresca made 11 changes to the Chelsea team that lost to Liverpool at Anfield last weekend. Reece James, Moises Caicedo, Nicolas Jackson, Levi Colwill and Malo Gusto did not even travel to Athens while Cole Palmer, Romeo Lavia and Wesley Fofana are not registered in Chelsea’s squad for the Europa Conference League, yet their starting XI against Panathinaikos still cost more than £500million in transfer fees to assemble.
With every outing it feels more and more absurd that Chelsea are in this tournament — even as Maresca made a point of pushing back on that particular narrative in his post-match press conference. “If we play Conference, then it’s because in this moment we belong to the Conference,” he insisted.
“If next year or two years we play Champions League, then it is because we deserve to play Champions League. I think football always puts you where you deserve to be.”
But it is worth remembering that Chelsea are only here as a quirky consequence of Manchester United postponing their perennial crisis under Erik ten Hag for just long enough to upset Manchester City in the FA Cup final in May. The gulf in financial resources and footballing firepower between Maresca’s squad and the rest of the Europa Conference League field is bigger than anything seen in the modern history of UEFA competitions.
Fiorentina and Real Betis are at least solid teams from top-five European leagues, but it would still be a major surprise if either of them knocked Chelsea out of the Europa Conference League. The big takeaway from the consolation goals conceded in the Gent and Panathinaikos wins, and the embarrassing near-collapse in the playoff against Servette, is that by far the most significant threat to Chelsea’s chances of winning the only European competition missing from their trophy collection is creeping complacency.
Being such heavy favourites brings its own pressure, but it also offers rare opportunities. For the next few months Maresca will be able to keep his expensive reserves in a good rhythm of match action without overloading his Premier League starters, a luxury not available to most of Chelsea’s top-four rivals. He will also get more opportunities to see what he has in talented Cobham products like Tyrique George, Shumaira Mheuka and Sam Rak-Sakyi, even if Josh Acheampong continues to be frozen out.
Conference League action can also provide a platform for some towards the fringes of Chelsea’s squad to begin to push their way into Maresca’s plans for the Premier League. Look no further than Renato Veiga, whose versatility is making an impression on his head coach after a relatively assured performance at centre-back against Panathinaikos.
“I just said to Renato, he has played already as a centre-back, a full-back, holding midfielder, attacking midfielder,” Maresca said of Veiga. “He has already played four or five positions. One of my first press conferences, I said that the reason why I really like and love Chelsea is because many players can be versatile.
“In my idea, if they can play different positions, then it is better for the team and especially for the players. Today, if you just play one position, I don’t think it’s enough. You need to learn more positions. Renato, Malo [Gusto], they are playing in different positions and they are doing well.”
Difficult personnel decisions will confront Maresca if he wants Palmer, Lavia and Fofana at his disposal for the Europa Conference League knockout rounds, but he should not need any of them to win the trophy. Chelsea are the class of this competition and it is not close.
(Top photo:Dean Mouhtaropoulos/UEFA via Getty Images)
