3. Marc Cucurella

[Thor 2,689]

3 minutes ago, TheHulk said:

Yeah, great way to get himself in the stands for next match.

How those straws you clutching? 

[TheHulk 2,401]

Just now, Thor said:

How those straws you clutching? 

I pity you quoting and constantly crying on this forum to everyone who has different views towards a player or target than you.

 

[Thor 2,689]

1 minute ago, TheHulk said:

I pity you quoting and constantly crying on this forum to everyone who has different views towards a player or target than you.

 

Pity? Crying? Cool. 
 

I was one backing players on here and saying give it time. You’re the brash one coming off as a know it all. 
Saying Cucu sucks and sell him at the first chance after how he’s performed this season and at the Euros? Great take. 
 

Me calling out fickle fans isn’t me crying. It’s you crying. And me calling you out on it. 

[robsblubot 3,595]

5 hours ago, TheHulk said:

I pity you quoting and constantly crying on this forum to everyone who has different views towards a player or target than you.

 

Don't mind Thor, he is a fucking Troll. He does not work the idea, but the person. He's the squad police and official cheerleader for the billionaire owners. Nobody gives a fuck about his calling out. 😆

Not even the manager played Cucu until towards the end of the season. Players' form fluctuate a lot throughout a long season. Cucu played like shit for over a year, then he got better. It happens a lot. 🤷‍♂️

Thor the Troll.

Edited December 16, 2024 by robsblubot

[Fulham Broadway 17,299]

Robust arguments about points is fine,  personal attacks we dont want or we will issue warnings/bans etc

 

[Strike 7,474]

On 14/12/2024 at 12:10, Fernando said:

What about selling cucu and getting Robinson from Fulham? 

Cucurella is far better, more consistent than Robinson. He can come here as backup 

 

[Fernando 6,585]

On 08/12/2024 at 15:54, Simon1991 said:

Haha you guys are nuts. He's arguably one of the best left-backs in europe, top 3 for us this season, and you're talking about selling him. 😂

I see it this way, is like selling Kante when we should have sold him. 

We would got massive money for him and instead left for free. 

Yes Cucu has done good, but there's something I'm not a big fan of him long term. 

Yes he is good now and will do the work for us next season. But if a big fee comes in for him we should consider it...but only if there's a good player to replace him.

Which at the moment there is no one so yes it will be nonsense to sell him since he is doing so good. 

[Strike 7,474]

22 hours ago, Fernando said:

I see it this way, is like selling Kante when we should have sold him. 

We would got massive money for him and instead left for free. 

Yes Cucu has done good, but there's something I'm not a big fan of him long term. 

Yes he is good now and will do the work for us next season. But if a big fee comes in for him we should consider it...but only if there's a good player to replace him.

Which at the moment there is no one so yes it will be nonsense to sell him since he is doing so good. 

He is only 26. I would keep Cucu and revisit this when he is closer to 30

[Vesper 30,085]

“That guy is amazing” – ESPN pundit Frank Lebouef has to eat his words over player he called “not good enough”

https://Chelsea.news/2025/03/espn-pundit-eat-words-cucurella/

Frank Lebouef has been on his ESPN show this week with a big apology to Chelsea’s match winner from yesterday, Marc Cucurella:

“I want to mention somebody because I was very harsh, very hard on him about two years ago. Cucurella. I call him Cucu the saviour! That’s what I call him. He’s become my idol! That guy is amazing: defensively, offensively. Cucu the saviour, I love you,” the former Blues defender said on ESPN.

To remind you, these were his thoughts a year ago:

“We don’t want to see Cucurella anymore. With all due respect to a man that I don’t know, the player is not good enough for Chelsea. It’s as simple as that. It’s crazy that they signed him for £60m, but we can see that he doesn’t belong to this level.”

Lebouef isn’t the only person whose mind Cucurella has changed, especially in the last 12 months where a new role for Chelsea has suddenly unlocked the best parts of his game while shielding the worst.

We would argue that there are still plenty of people who believe that, or at least a version of that. But in reality it’s not that Cucurella was ever a terrible player, he just has a very unusual profile which is outstanding in some things and not in others. He’s very good at the things he’s good at, but not so strong in others.

The turnaround for Leboeuf had already begun last summer. We reported on his comments during the Euros where he admitted he had been impressed, and just questioned whether the full back could carry that form into the season with Chelsea.

We reckon that he’s had his questions answered now!

[Vesper 30,085]

Marc Cucurella's girlfriend Claudia Rodriguez gives emotional interview on four-year-old son's autism diagnosis on new series of Married To The Game

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-14554187/Marc-Cucurella-Claudia-Rodriguez-autistic-child-Married-Game.html

Marc Cucurella's girlfriend Claudia Rodriguez has opened up on the challenges they've faced in raising their autistic child together.

The couple feature on the latest season of Married to the Game, which looks into the lives of the wives and girlfriends of leading Premier League footballers.

The likes of Jorginho, Leon Bailey and Riyad Mahrez also star in the show alongside their partners however it's Cucurella and Rodriguez's story which tugs on the heartstrings. 

The couple met when they were teenagers and since then have formed an inseparable bond and have three kids - Mateo, Rio, and Bella.

Eldest son Mateo, four, has been diagnosed with autism and, during the show, Rodriguez opened up on the challenges that the couple have faced. 

Speaking on the show, airing April 8, she said: 'We saw something different about Mateo when he was small, about 13 months old, but it was a long process to get the diagnosis. When he was smaller it was easier but now he's growing up, it's more difficult.

Marc Cucurella's girlfriend Claudia Rodriguez has opened up on the challenges they've faced in raising their autistic child (Pictured L-R: Mateo, Rio, and Bella)

Cucurella broke down in tears during a trailer for the new series of Married to the Game 

 

'When we moved to Chelsea, we started him at school and he was very upset, and we didn't know the solution. You have to find it yourself, and you feel very bad because you are not prepared for it. 

'You prepared to be a mum, but not to be a mum of an autistic kid, so you feel bad. It was very, very difficult to see him like that, so upset, and we just tried to find the best solution.

'I told Marc we had to find a special school for him because he wasn't learning, he wasn't enjoying his life. I didn't want to lose any more time, we had to do something.

'So I found an amazing place in London where they understood him and they understood his needs, so we moved him there and our lives changed completely. At first I drove him there from our house in Cobham but it was two hours to drive in the morning and another two hours to pick him up again. I was in the car all day long.

'Then we had a robbery in that house and I decided I didn't want to go back there, so we moved to London and that made it easier for Mateo to get to his school.'

When asked how Mateo copes now, she said: 'He's good, he sometimes says a few words, repeats them back, and we're just working on it. You never know what the future will hold for him but we are working on it. 

'I don't know if he will speak or not. I don't know anything, but we are trying to do everything for him. I went to Madrid one week ago to do some tests, all day long we are trying to find solutions, and that's the best we can do.' 

Their eldest son Mateo, four, was diagnosed with autism from an early age

 

Finally, speaking about the aforementioned robbery, Rodriguez said: 'Marc was upstairs in the shower with Mateo, I was pregnant with Bella and I went to my room to get the milk bottle for Rio, I had him on my hip. 

'As I was going to my room, I saw two doors closed and the light on in the dresser and it just didn't look right. It's not how we usually leave it. I opened the door and saw someone in there with a bag, looking at me. 

'And I completely understood in that moment what was happening. I was terrified – very, very scared. You know, I was pregnant and with two kids in the house.

'I went downstairs to press the panic button, and I shouted at Marc to come. We waited in the laundry room and called the police, called everyone to help us, and it was terrifying. 

'It was very difficult to sleep for the next days, the next months, even. I couldn't go anywhere alone. I always needed someone. I'd say, "Can you come with me to my room?"'

 

 

Married To The Game is available exclusively on Prime Video on April 8.

[Vesper 30,085]

Marc Cucurella interview: Chelsea adaptation, a year of non-stop football and Club World Cup reflections

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6490211/2025/07/12/marc-cucurella-Chelsea-interview/

Just one more game. Three-hundred and fifty-six days since the Chelsea squad flew to California to begin a five-game pre-season tour of the United States, their 2024-25 campaign winds up back in America, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, on Sunday with the Club World Cup final — a chance to make history before a brief opportunity to rest.

The squad have spent the past week in nearby New York City, holed up in a hotel on affluent Fifth Avenue but occasionally allowed out to explore Manhattan between training sessions. There was the wonderful juxtaposition of a social-media video showing Cole Palmer wobbling along on a scooter in Times Square, largely unrecognised by the crowds of Americans, while his face stares down at them from a billboard.

New York is the city that never sleeps. Football is the sport that never sleeps.

For Palmer, this is the third consecutive summer involved in a tournament that stretches well into July — the European Under-21 Championship in 2023, the European Championship last year, and now the revamped and expanded Club World Cup — and he will hope and expect to feature at the 2026 World Cup in 12 months’ time, too.

A three-week break, starting on Monday, would leave Chelsea with less than two weeks to build up for the new Premier League campaign, which starts for them at home against Crystal Palace on August 17.

Chelsea left-back Marc Cucurella, who was part of the Spain team who beat England in the final of those Euros last July, says he is looking forward to his holiday — a Disney-themed cruise with his young family — and a chance to switch off and “not think about football”. But he is not among those who have dismissed the Club World Cup as a Mickey Mouse competition. Sunday brings the serious business of a final against a Paris Saint-Germain team widely regarded as the best in the game right now. 

He and his team-mates would not want it any other way. The victors tomorrow will be the first world champions of the tournament’s new era.

“We know that if we win it, we have the badge on the shirt for a couple of years,” Cucurella told a small group of reporters at the team hotel this week. “I know it’s difficult after a long season — the (daytime kick-off) times that we play (during the Club World Cup) are a bit difficult because it’s very hot — but this is the first time they’ve done this competition, so we can be the first team to win it. That would be amazing.”

It would also represent a dramatic turnaround, for Chelsea and for the 26-year-old Spaniard.

For some time after his initial £56million ($75.6m at current rates) transfer from Brighton & Hove Albion in August 2022, he was cast and maligned as a symbol of the west London club’s excesses in the transfer market.

It was a turbulent period at Chelsea, reflected by a huge turnover of players and coaches — from Thomas Tuchel to Graham Potter to Frank Lampard (on an interim basis) to Mauricio Pochettino to current boss Enzo Maresca — but one that Cucurella feels they have left firmly behind them.

Cucurella spoke candidly about the adversity he suffered along the way. The way he describes it, his first 18 months at Stanford Bridge sound joyless — partly “because the team maybe didn’t have an identity or didn’t have a clear way to play” but also because of the pressure that grew with every poor result.

“I struggled a little,” he says. “In the first months, I was like, ‘Oh f***ing hell… .’ I enjoyed it more at other clubs because, when you win, you’re happy all week and the feeling is very different: you win, you’re very happy; you draw, it’s another point, don’t get relegated. But when you come here, you feel like you need to win every game. The first games (for Chelsea), I don’t feel like I enjoyed. You win? It’s your job (to win), and you don’t celebrate. It’s difficult to feel this pressure.”

He looks back on an enforced lay-off with an ankle injury, around the mid-point of the 2023-24 season, as a blessing in disguise. It gave him a chance to rest, reflect, clear his head and adjust mentally to a club where he had known only turmoil to that point. 

“It was a bad moment, very tough for me,” he says. “But when I was injured, I was three months out and had a lot of time to think more about myself, what’s good for me and what I need to work on. The most important thing — it’s difficult, but it’s to not lose confidence. I’m the same player I was in my first years (at Chelsea) but now I have more confidence in myself. I trust my quality. It can be difficult to understand that when you play a good game, you’re not the best — and when you play a bad game, you’re not the worst. You always need to try to stay in the same line. It’s an important thing to learn in the big clubs.

“I started to enjoy my journey here after my injury. In my first (actually his second) game back, when I played against Leicester (in the FA Cup), I scored. Then, that evening, the national team called me, because they had an injured left-back. Everything moved forward. In the summer, I played the Euros, we won, and I got a lot of confidence from that. I came here (back to Chelsea) in the summer and everything was better.”

Cucurella feels the turnaround began towards the end of that 2023-24 season, under Pochettino, but that things have improved further since Maresca, who replaced the Argentinian having just led Leicester to Premier League promotion in his first (and, until the full-time whistle tomorrow night, only) full season of senior management.

“He arrived with a lot of energy and good ideas and helped me a lot,” he says of the Italian. “We had a good season. It’s true that for a couple of months we lost a bit of energy and lost some confidence, but in general we achieved everything we wanted: we wanted Champions League (qualification) and we did it; we won the Conference League, and this is another step for us.”

Already a European champion with Spain, Cucurella can also become a world champion — not just with his country in the States again next summer but with Chelsea on Sunday. From being derided in some quarters after that big-money move from Brighton, he has become one of the most admired left-backs in the game, a whole-hearted, rigorous defender who makes key contributions going forward. 

Even so, this final looks like a step up in level for Chelsea. In wide areas, PSG have some of the most dangerous players in world football — not just Bradley Barcola, Desire Doue, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or indeed Lee Kang-in or Ibrahim Mbaye off the bench, but also Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes charging forward from full-back. Some of their performances since the turn of the year, notably in the 5-0 thrashing of Inter in the Champions League final at the end of May and the 4-0 defeat of Real Madrid in the Club World Cup semi-finals on Wednesday, have been irresistible.

Cucurella is asked whether he feels PSG are a class above every other team in the world right now.

“I think so,” he says. “They have shown themselves as this sort of team all season. They have a lot of good players. They play good football. But I think a final is a final, and we deserve to be there against a tough team. This is an opportunity to show we have a good team. We have a profile for big things. Hopefully, we can win.”

He then looked back on Chelsea’s Club World Cup experience over the past month.

“We suffered a lot because we lost against Flamengo (3-1, in the second of their three group matches) and a lot of people criticised us,” he says. “The Benfica game (in the round of 16) with the storm and the crazy minutes after that. But we stuck together and we knew that if we stuck to our plan, we would get better. We deserve to stay here. We (Chelsea and PSG) have shown we are the two best teams in the competition.”

 

Cucurella clears the ball off the line during Chelsea’s semi-final win against Fluminense (Luke Hales/Getty Images)

The tournament has had its critics, but Cucurella says it has surpassed his expectations, which it appears were not exactly sky-high.

“I think the experience was good, to be fair,” he says. “I think I expected worse. If you get to the final, you feel better. If you get here and you lose in the knockouts or the first round, that’s tough because you feel, ‘Oh, I lose my holiday, I lose my time’. But yeah, I think it can be a good experience.

“It’s the first time and maybe they need to adjust some things, small details. But in general, I enjoy it a lot. We have the opportunity to play here in America in a big competition against teams that normally you don’t play, other than friendlies. We had the chance to go out and (get to) know the cities. For me, it’s a very good experience.”

The idea has been floated in FIFA circles that the Club World Cup could be expanded further, from the current 32 teams to 48, or become a biennial tournament having originally been floated as four-yearly — a suggestion FIFA president Gianni Infantino did not dismiss when The Athletic asked him about that possibility at a media event in Manhattan on Saturday morning.

Would a Club World Cup every two years be too much?

“Maybe yes,” Cucurella says. “Every four years is OK, in my opinion, because it’s not too repetitive or too boring. I understand that if people watch games for 12 months, then you don’t enjoy it. Imagine if the World Cup was played every summer. It isn’t (wouldn’t be) the same. The World Cup is once every four years, and people expect this. If they get some time off or some rest, I think people enjoy more of the games.”

But it probably says something about Chelsea’s journey over the course of this long, long season, as much as about the Club World Cup, that Cucurella and his team-mates are bounding into tomorrow’s final with a spring in their step — certainly when you compare it to their mood and their body language in the darkness of the campaign’s winter months.

Just one more game and a chance to make history, then a brief opportunity to rest and recharge before the madness starts up again with Palace’s visit in a little over a month.

[ahmedou 188]

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