Chelsea legend Petr Cech has given the current squad a rallying cry - and told them to have “no regrets.”
Cech, now the club’s technical and performance director, spoke to the players ahead of their Club World Cup final with Palmeiras on Saturday.
Ex-Chelsea keeper Cech, 39, revealed that losing the 2012 showpiece was the biggest regret of his glittering playing career as it is the only trophy he did not win at Stamford Bridge.
Cech also warned the players they must not treat the trip to Abu Dhabi as a pre-season tour or friendly and must seize the moment - because they might not get the chance again in their careers.
Chelsea midfielder Mason Mount said: "Petr has spoken to us a bit in training that he doesn’t have many regrets in his career, but one of them was not doing this to its fullest and winning this competition when he had the chance because it only came around once for him.
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"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 to win a major competition that not many win.
"We’re focussed on that and that’s definitely a message that has hit hard the last couple of days.
"It doesn't happen very often, any opportunity you get to play in a final you want to take it, so now it's down to us, and it's on us to now perform and go out there and try and win the game, and it's a massive, massive game.
"You're playing against a Brazilian team, and we all know how big the competition is in Brazil, we spoke about it before we even got out here and about how seriously and how big it is for them."
Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has been absent this week after testing positive for Covid and Cech has taken a hands-on role, giving the players another pep talk before their training session on Tuesday.
Cech recalled that after qualifying for the Club World Cup back in 2012, some of the players back were fed-up with the hotel facilities and pitch in Japan and failed to do themselves justice.
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