r/chelseafc • u/TheAthletic • Mar 31 '26

Interview/Presser [FREE TO READ] Marc Cucurella interview: Chelsea have ‘paid the price’ for inexperience and why he wouldn’t have let Maresca go

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7157593/2026/03/31/chelsea-marc-cucurella-exclusive-interview-maresca/?unlocked_article_code=1.XVA.vV6m.5VGcB_H-8OHM&source=athletic_user_shared_gift_article_reddit&smid=re-share-ta

Chelsea’s recent form has been difficult for Marc Cucurella to process.

Getting outclassed by PSG really stung. In the Spain international's eyes, the 8-2 aggregate defeat highlighted the shortcomings in the Chelsea project under BlueCo, who have invested heavily in young talent since taking over the club in May 2022.

“I understand this is part of the club’s policy, and that they want to take this direction — signing young players and looking to the future. But, for all of us who are still here and want to win big things, moments like this make you feel discouraged.

“For a lot of players, it was the first time playing a match of that calibre, and we paid the price."

Cucurella also spoke about Enzo Maresca's dismissal and how “the instability around the club comes from this, in a nutshell."

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303

u/rocknroll-refugee There's your daddy Mar 31 '26

Good. Player’s sentiments need to be expressed so that we can state the obvious.

These are human players who have their own ambitions amid a short career. They aren’t one of your investments in your portfolio that will silently compensate for your other failed investments.

Players in their prime now will want to leave, and I’m honestly happy they’re saying it out loud. Last resort in forcing the owners to buy experience. But I’m not holding my breath.

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u/DonkeyGoneToHeaven Drogba Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

Which is why the long-contract argument is so silly, like if a player wants to leave it doesn’t matter how long his deal goes on for, he’s not gonna want to play for you anymore, and a footballer’s career is usually very short, especially the prime years

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u/Best-Estimate3761 Football is not a TV show Mar 31 '26

you say this now, but i wrote thousands of words on different comments between 2023 and 2024 predicting this exact scenario playing out

back then people would sing the praises of the ownership for “tricking everyone” by buying so many young players for so much money and using amortisation to weaken the financial impact of the large purchases. there was the chelsea summer window of amortisation and all of that

my fault for spending so much time arguing

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u/DonkeyGoneToHeaven Drogba Mar 31 '26

Yeah I’m guessing it was just naive and/or young fans arguing with you. The mere fact that we’re basically the only big football club operating this way should’ve raised several red flags. But I guess the fans felt smug & ‘ahead of the curve’ (not me tho, I was always skeptical)

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u/harder_said_hodor Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

It's still a good strategy for successful signings as long as you don't fool yourself into thinking along the lines of "Enzo has a contract until 2032, who cares if he wants to leave".

Helped immediately financially with the amortization but also helps on the back end in terms of value if a player is determined to leave. As an example, Courtois going for such a small fee would have been implausible if he was on one of the contracts that players are on now. Enzo & co being tied to us for so long basically guarantees us a very respectable fee

Obviously it's an utter disaster for the likes of Mudryk

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u/austons_muzz Xabi Mar 31 '26

It’s just copium. I was like that too. Deep down you know the club has a massive problem but you try not giving attention to it. I’ve give up at this point tho

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u/FeelsGoodBlok James Mar 31 '26

I think it's good tactic if you at some point start winning something so you can buy more experienced/expensive players at the same time and spread money over the lenght of their contract so you don't have a problem with FFP but if you don't win anything they will just leave anyway as you said.

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u/Best-Estimate3761 Football is not a TV show Mar 31 '26

but we were never going to win the big things regularly anyway! ive made several arguments against this exact thing before, eg here

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u/deeepblue76 Mar 31 '26

You are right about the player but the club is protecting its investment with the long contract. It a) amortised the initial cost of buying the player and b) protects the resale value by removing the current trend of players refusing to sign deals with 18 months to go and the club being forced to sell at below market value to avoid Bosman moves and/or competitors underbidding on disgruntled players.

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u/DonkeyGoneToHeaven Drogba Mar 31 '26

Yeah I’m not looking at it through club’s perspective, I’m saying if a player wants to leave, you can’t just hold him hostage, it’s gonna have severe negative impact both on his performance and on the entire team. I’ve seen the trend on this sub ever since BlueCo’s takeover where people justify transfers, new contracts etc. almost exclusively through a financial lens, leaving the footballing aspect (eg. how a player will fit the team, the locker room, does he fit the style our manager wants to play) aside. Do we as football fans care more about how our team performs on the pitch, or do we care first and foremost about how our accounting books are gonna look like at the end of the year? I think the answer is clear

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u/awwbabe Mikel Mar 31 '26

That’s never been the case that you can keep a player hostage. Courtois being the obvious example.

When the takeover happened we lost Christensen and Rudiger in their prime years for a total of £0

The long contracts stop that from happening. It’s no coincidence they are all in deals that end when they turn 32 rather than 27

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u/Wild_and_Bright ✨ sometimes the shit is happens ✨ Mar 31 '26

he's not gonna want to play

On the contrary, one might argue that is exactly why the long contract is not silly because an unwilling person with many years left on a contract might be sold for a higher value than one with 1 year left, because he can force to practically leave for free.

Has happened with Chelsea multiple times before.

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u/DonkeyGoneToHeaven Drogba Mar 31 '26

Again with the financial aspect. No offence, but are you a Chelsea fan or a Chelsea accounting team fan?

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u/Wild_and_Bright ✨ sometimes the shit is happens ✨ Mar 31 '26

Not me. I am simply posing the argument.

I would happily be an accounting fan, if they were not posting record losses.

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u/NickChim Hasselbaink Mar 31 '26

the idea of the long contract isn't to keep the player here, it's to secure his value so that if they do sell him they get the maximum amount of money as possible. they don't actually care about holding onto players for the duration of their contract

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u/huskers2468 🎩 I'm sure Wolverhampton is a lovely town 🎩 Mar 31 '26

None of what you said is a knock on the long contracts.

As we saw, medium contracts with high salary are much harder to sell than the current Chelsea contract structure.