Christian Pulisic scored at home, but Chelsea struggled to defeat a focused and motivated Charlotte FC.
At the half-hour mark, the American capitalized on a fortunate deflection to score Chelsea’s lone goal, ensuring the USMNT star a good night playing as a No. 10.
However, Charlotte FC did not give Chelsea’s midfielders any breathing room as interim head coach Christian Lattanzio orchestrated a strong home performance to make it challenging for players like Raheem Sterling and Kai Havertz. “We were good for 80 meters of the pitch, but were not good enough in the final 20 meters,” said Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel after the match. “Today is on us, they showed courage and belief, man-marking us one-on-one. Whenever you give the stadium belief like we did anything can happen”
Brian Romero, 16, a member of Charlotte FC’s academy, was awarded a penalty with the game’s final kick after Trevoh Chalobah was fouled. Daniel Rios then converted a penalty kick to tie the game at 1-1. A “winner” is necessary for these exhibition matches, which means a shootout was necessary to decide the winner.
All five Charlotte FC penalty shooters converted, and the game’s deciding Panenka effort from Connor Gallagher was saved by Pablo Sisniega, Charlotte’s third goalie.
Arsenal will now meet Chelsea in the club’s last summer warm-up game in Orlando, Florida.
