Reece James confident Chelsea can get better of Paris St Germain in CWC final

Captain Reece James is convinced Chelsea can defy the odds and pull off a huge upset against Paris St Germain to be crowned world champions.

The Blues face the exhilarating and in-form French outfit in Sunday’s Club World Cup final in New York and know the odds are stacked against them.

PSG are on the brink of a quintuple, having already won the Champions League and three domestic trophies.

In addition, Luis Enrique’s side all but replicated their stunning 5-0 rout of Inter Milan in the Champions League final by thrashing Real Madrid 4-0 in Wednesday’s semi-final.

Yet form and reputation are of no concern to James, who has no doubt Chelsea will be ready for the challenge at the MetLife Stadium.

The 25-year-old said: “This game is a super high-level game. They are one of the hottest teams in the world at the moment. They are down as strong favourites.

“But I have been in finals where I have played for the favourites and not come out on top, so this doesn’t mean much to me and I don’t care, to be honest, that everyone is ‘bigging up’ our opposition.

“PSG have beaten all the English teams, they have an amazing team, but we have an amazing team and have surprised a lot of people.

“We’ve come a long way on our journey from where we started. We are preparing right and going there to win.

“I believe we will go toe-to-toe. Stats, data, favourites and not favourites don’t mean anything to our team.”

James has also declared himself fit after clarifying the issue that saw him miss the quarter-final win over Palmeiras.

The right-back had been on the teamsheet in Philadelphia last Friday but pulled out after the warm up.

“Just to be clear, I wasn’t injured so let’s put that to bed,” he said. “I wasn’t feeling so good in the warm-up, with my history.

“I could have played but it was a warning. It would have been ‘why did I not listen?’ (if I got injured), so I decided not to take an unnecessary risk.”

Chelsea are continuing to monitor the fitness of key midfielder Moises Caicedo, who suffered an ankle injury in the closing stages of Tuesday’s semi-final victory over Fluminense.

Manager Enzo Maresca said: “Moises is such an important player for us. This morning he trained but he couldn’t take part in the session fully. We hope he can play on Sunday.”

The match will be Chelsea’s 64th of a long season that has also seen them secure Champions League qualification and win the Europa Conference League.

Maresca, who has now been in charge for one year, feels the side have changed how people perceive them.

He said: “One year ago no-one was talking about Chelsea and football. Everyone was talking about Chelsea (and) big squad, big money, these kinds of things.

“Now, no-one is talking about this. Now everyone is talking about Chelsea, the way we play, the way we win games, and this is personally the biggest achievement of this season.”