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'The answer is…' – Maresca discusses his captain’s embarrassing touchline moment on Saturday

Originally posted on Chelsea News | Last updated Sep 1, 2025 8:44 AM ET

At half time of yesterday’s game against Fulham, the focus was all on Marco Silva.

After seeing a goal for his team ruled out for a soft foul, then watching Chelsea score in the 9th minute of first half injury time, he was fuming and waited for the referees at the side of the pitch, with the TV cameras over his shoulder.

It was all a disappointment in the end – he didn’t even get too angry. And it meant we missed more interesting action on the sideline, where Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez stormed off the pitch frustrated by his own performance, threatening to hand over the captain’s armband to a fitness coach and effectively sub himself off.

Maresca addresses Enzo Fernandez half time fury

Asked about this after the game, manager Enzo Maresca calmed things down:

“The answer [to why he was so angry] is: he’s a Club World Cup winner, he’s a World Cup winner. And I think probably he’s the only player in the world to win both titles. And when he’s not good enough, he can recognise. And probably he was upset for that. Because in the first-half I think he was not good enough.

“Then in the second-half he was, like the rest, brilliant. So probably the reason why he was not happy is because he can see that he was not good enough. And in the second-half I think he was brilliant. But at the end of the game they were all dancing or celebrating the win. So Enzo was there and he was happy.”

Angry performance leads to improved performance

We’d still rather our players stay a little more level headed, but we also enjoy a bit of fire in them. He was able to take out all that frustration on the penalty in the second period which he smashed in.

Maresca is right – the whole team were far better in the second half.

This article first appeared on Chelsea News and was syndicated with permission.

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