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Chelsea duo Joao Pedro and Robert Sanchez have unfinished business with Paris Saint-Germain following the Club World Cup in the summer
Chelsea can rub salt in the Paris Saint-Germain wounds when they meet in the UEFA Champions League. Next month, the French giants will host Liam Rosenior's side at Parc des Princes in the first leg of the last-16 before the Blues return the favour at Stamford Bridge a week later.
Chelsea and PSG will battle it out for a place in the quarter-final, where they will lock horns with either Galatasaray or Liverpool. If the Blues manage to make it as far as the semi-final, they could come up against Manchester City – so long as they overcome Real Madrid at the first hurdle and beat one of Bayern Munich or Atalanta.
The west Londoners will be determined to go the distance and win the competition for a third time, but first they must defeat the reigning champions... again. Chelsea struck a nerve when they humiliated the Parisians in the Club World Cup final.
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The Blues enjoyed a 3-0 win over PSG at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, waltzing to victory in spectacular fashion. Towards the end of the game, Joao Neves was sent off for pulling Marc Cucurella's hair.
Then, upon the full-time whistle, tensions boiled over and Joao Pedro ended up on the deck following an altercation with Luis Enrique and Gianluigi Donnarumma. The former appeared to slap the Chelsea striker in the face before the latter shoved him over.
Players and coaching staff from either side piled in and a mass brawl broke out. Although Enrique didn't apologise to Pedro after the game, he admitted that he regrets his involvement in the altercation,
"At the end of the match, there was a situation that I believe could have been avoided by everyone," said the Spaniard in his post-match press conference. "My objective and my intention, as always, is to try to win over the players so that there are no more problems.
"Internally, there is a lot of tension, a lot of pressure. And from there, there is a series of shoves from a lot of people, which I think we should all avoid and which should not happen again."
Meanwhile, Joao Pedro, who put the third and final nail in the PSG coffin, said: "I don't need to talk about them. Everyone wants to win the game and, in the end, I think they lost their heads.
"But this is football. This has happened. Now we need to enjoy it because we won the tournament, that's it. I don't want to talk too much about them because you know how it works. Football is this."
Chelsea and PSG went their separate ways until Robert Sanchez, who won the Golden Glove award at the Club World Cup, rubbed salt into the wounds. In a video posted across the club's official social media channels earlier this season, the goalkeeper was asked who he wants to face in the Champions League group phase.
"Give us PSG man so we can get them out and they will have no excuse this time as well," said Sanchez. The Spain international, who was brilliant at the Club World Cup, has since become a key player for Chelsea.
Barring a couple of mistakes, Sanchez has quietly enjoyed a very good season. He'll be looking to continue his promising vein of form when the Blues lock horns with PSG next month...
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