The team has trained for the final time before the second game of pre-season and on this occasion in front of an appreciative audience.
The gates of the Shah Alam Stadium, which is both the training base and the venue for the game in Kuala Lumpur, were opened up on Saturday evening, allowing a vociferous crowd of Malaysian fans and supporters who had travelled from further afield to watch on.
Josh McEachran was back in training after the minor groin injury that kept him out of the Bangkok game, but Frank Lampard was not part of the session. Jose Mourinho has already said there will be no risks with injuries during pre-season. Lampard missed the opening game due to a small pain in his Achilles.
Joining the players out in the stadium after they had begun their session was Stamford the Lion, unusually dressed in away kit. The team will wear the new white adidas kit for the first time against the Malaysia XI tomorrow. Bridget, Stamford’s friend who made her ‘debut’ at a Chelsea game in Bangkok, was again with him as the two greeted the crowd and mementos were distributed.
On the pitch, training ended in a three-team mini-tournament with extremely small targets to hit. A combination of craft and on occasions brute-force shooting was need to find the net past some very densely packed goalmouths.
It needed a crossbar challenge tie-break to decide the winning team, those five being John Terry, Romelu Lukaku, Ramires, Andre Schurrle and fitness coach Chris Jones. They did not hold back on the celebrations.
Songs and chants familiar from Stamford Bridge had been the backing track to training and before the players returned to the hotel to eat and rest, there were autographs for a band of Samsung and adidas competition winners.
Malaysia XI v Chelsea kicks off at 9.45pm local time, 2.45pm UK time on Sunday. It will be shown live on Chelsea TV.