Petr Cech begs Chelsea to take Club World Cup seriously after Blues flops lost in 2012 and treated it like pre-season

CHELSEA legend Petr Cech has handed the club’s players a major warning ahead of Saturday’s Club World Cup final against Palmeiras.

The legendary former Blues keeper, now technical and performance advisor at Stamford Bridge, admitted that a massive career regret was a failure to win the same cup a decade ago.

Petr Cech was part of the Chelsea side that lost to Corinthians in the 2012 Club World Cup finalCredit: Getty

The Blues face Palmeiras in Saturday’s final at the Mohammed Bin Zayed StadiumCredit: AP

Chelsea lost to Corinthians 1-0 in Japan with Cech convinced only three of his team-mates took the Club World Cup in Yokohama seriously.

Cech is with the squad here in the UAE and Blues midfielder Mason Mount revealed: “Petr spoke a bit in training.

“He doesn’t have many regrets in his career but one of them was not doing this to fullest and winning this competition when he had the chance.

“It only came around once in his career.

“It may only come around once in my career so as a group we know how serious we’re taking this and how important it is to give it everything in these two games to win a major competition that not many win.

“We’re focused on that and that’s definitely a message that has hit hard the last couple of days.

“You don’t get this opportunity very often and we have to take it.”

Cech told the current squad that in 2012 most of the Chelsea players treated the Club World Cup like a pre-season tournament and were not mentally prepared to win.

The ex-Arsenal keeper has been speaking at length with some of the players who have been without boss Thomas Tuchel.

He has been at home isolating after testing positive for Covid 19 but flew out on Friday to join up with the squad.

Cech and the rest of Tuchel’s coaching staff were happy with the attitude in the 1-0 win over Al Hilal in the semi-finals despite a poor performance.

They put a series of mistakes down to nerves rather than a lack of desire.

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