New return Chelsea star confirms Graham Potter is in fear ahead of Premier League return
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With Croatia ready to play Morocco in the World Cup third-place play-off before the final between Argentina and France, Mateo Kovacic is still in Qatar.
Mateo Kovacic has already competed in 26 games this season and will participate again on Saturday. Croatia, which was eliminated from World Cup contention by Argentina, will play Morocco in an effort to establish itself as the third-greatest team in the world.
Despite sustaining a preseason injury, the Chelsea midfielder has continued to play in 2022–23, a season in which domestic matchups were shortened to accommodate the international competition. Since then, Kovacic has contended with a knee problem that has been handled throughout the season; yet, the 28-year-old has hardly missed a game.
The former Inter Milan and Real Madrid star have been blunt about his own health and that of his teammates. Graham Potter will be disappointed to hear the information but will have expected it.
We are fatigued, and many of us will be exhausted when we return to our clubs, but this is what we love, so we will come back, recover, and then concentrate on the upcoming six months for our clubs, he stated in a statement prior to this team’s third-place play-off.
All teams will have to cope with it, and while Chelsea has already welcomed back players like Cesar Azpilicueta, Kai Havertz, Christian Pulisic, Kalidou Koulibaly, and Edouard Mendy, the Blues’ England stars who advanced to the competition’s quarterfinal have not yet arrived at Cobham.
Under Potter, those taking part in the World Cup have had around a week off before going back to work. Just days before Chelsea’s return to action against Bournemouth, Kovacic and Hakim Ziyech, who has been engaged in Morocco’s campaign thus far, would be returning to Stamford Bridge.
Despite a team’s performance, Potter expressed concern in November about the short turnaround and the psychological costs of competitiveness.
Potter remarked: “I may urge them to return out of selfishness. The difficulty with putting the World Cup in the middle is that if you don’t go and celebrate even after winning the World Cup, you are forced to stay back here in training.
“Even then, it will be challenging since they must recuperate after having just played a game, regardless of the date. How long does it take to emotionally recuperate after a World Cup final? It can need weeks. They may be travelling everywhere in open-top buses. And to recover from that celebration, they require a three-week vacation. We are English, after all, so it has been a while since we were aware of it.
“Who will compete in the championship? From our standpoint, hopefully England, but who knows? If you’ve lost the World Cup championship, on that point. How much time does it take to recover from that? Not three or four days, probably.”
Only two of Chelsea’s players appeared in the semi-finals, and none will participate in the championship game. That will have helped the Blues in some way, especially as the players may still consider their campaigns successful even if they lost.
Kovacic continued: “The others all made jokes about Ziyech and I returning home first, and now the World Cup is almost over. We both share a great deal of pride in the accomplishments of our national teams.”
