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Indonesia All-Stars 1 Chelsea 8 match report: Exceptional prospect Bertrand Traore scores again in pre-season demolition job

 

Sam Wallace
Thursday 25 July 2013 18:46 BST
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Bertrand Traore
Bertrand Traore (GETTY IMAGES)

The Chelsea squad board their flight home to London tonight after a demolition of the local XI in Indonesia – the All-Stars, no less – doubtless confident that their tour of south-east Asia has given them a sufficient work-out and with no embarrassments in the matches themselves.

There was never any question that they would dispatch the hapless All-Stars whose struggles embodied some of the problems in Indonesian football; the nation's football association president Djohar Husin was loudly booed last night. No such hostility for the team of triers in white shirts who were steam-rollered by a Chelsea side that, Gary Cahill aside, was changed in its entirety over the course of the game.

Arsenal beat an Indonesian All-Star XI 7-0 this month and Chelsea had similar ease wrapping up their third win out of three games on tour. They conceded an own goal by second half substitute Tomas Kalas but the most eye-catching performances were in the blue shirts.

Eden Hazard, who opened the scoring with a penalty, looks to be reaching full sharpness. Romelu Lukaku came on in the second half to score twice; he has four goals in three games. Ramires, who also scored two, looks ready for the new season. Against this level of opponent, it was more about the physical work-out that Mourinho's players got in very demanding, humid conditions.

Once again Bertrand Traore scored, a second after his goal in Kuala Lumpur. The teenager from Burkina Faso is an exceptional prospect and his performances will only have alerted other clubs to his talents. Chelsea say he will sign a deal with them on his 18th birthday in September and seem confident that he will not go elsewhere.

The club will have been pleased with what looked like their best attendance of the tour and a lot of Indonesian fans in Chelsea shirts - not all of them of the unlicensed variety. They will undoubtedly be back in two years' time to a country that is - in the language of the boardroom - one of their key growth markets.

Chelsea (4-1-2-3): Blackman (Schwarzer ht); Wallace (Ivanovic ht), Cahill, Terry (Kala ht), Bertrand (Cole ht); Chalobah (Essien ht); Ramires (McEachran 60), Van Ginkel (Piazon 60); Moses (Traore ht), Ba (Lukaku ht), Hazard (Feruz 60).

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