Chelsea headed out to Hong Kong for a bit of pre-season sunshine and ended up getting slightly burned, courtesy of a wonderful goal from Edon Zhegrova that gave Juventus a narrow but deserved friendly victory. These summer games are always hard to read too much into, but a loss is still a loss, and the goal that settled it was genuinely special.
Zhegrova, who has been making a name for himself at Lille in recent seasons, absolutely unleashed one to win it for the Italian giants. The kind of strike that makes you sit up straight regardless of which team you support. Full credit to the lad โ when someone hits one like that, you just appreciate it and move on.
For Chelsea, the result will sting a little more because of the timing. Enzo Maresca is still piecing together exactly what his best team looks like, and defeats โ even in pre-season โ have a way of raising questions that nobody particularly wants to answer in July. The squad is deep, the investment has been enormous over recent years, and the expectations at Stamford Bridge remain sky high. Losing a friendly to Juventus is not the end of the world, but it adds a small cloud to what should be an optimistic pre-season mood.
In fairness to Chelsea, pre-season friendlies in far-flung locations rarely tell you much about where a team actually is. Legs are heavy, combinations are still being tried out, and half the squad's mind is probably on the air conditioning back at the hotel. Juventus, meanwhile, will be thrilled with the performance and that goal in particular gives them something genuinely exciting to build some early-season momentum around.
From a neutral point of view โ and as a United fan, trust me, neutrality about Chelsea comes quite naturally โ this was an entertaining little friendly with a proper highlight to remember it by. Chelsea will be fine. Probably. But Zhegrova just announced himself to a much wider audience, and that might be the real story here.
Let me know your thoughts.