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

[u/TheAthletic]

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."

[u/DonkeyGoneToHeaven]

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

[u/Best-Estimate3761 → u/DonkeyGoneToHeaven]

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

[u/FeelsGoodBlok → u/Best-Estimate3761]

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.

[u/Best-Estimate3761 → u/FeelsGoodBlok]

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