Whenever we play together, we don’t lose – Cucurella hails this Chelsea player who is like Lamine Yamal

Cucurella Cole Palmer
Photo: Robin Jones/GettyImages

Ahead of the Euro 2024 final, Chelsea left-back Marc Cucurella, has spoken highly of Chelsea star Cole Palmer.

Cucurella has likened Cole Palmer to Spain teammate Lamine Yamal, with the impact he has on games.

Marc Cucurella revealed how much of a chemistry he has with Cole Palmer, that they never lose games when they play together in training.

Asked by The Athletic if there was one England player he struggles to defend against, Cucurella named club teammate Cole Palmer, and revealed some similarities between him and Lamine Yamal.

He said: “He has not played a lot at Euro 2024, but it has to be Cole Palmer. His football brain works so quickly, he is always a step ahead of the rest. His decision-making is almost always excellent, and that sort of intelligence is the most difficult thing to defend against, you just can’t predict what he’ll do next. I’ve suffered a lot in training.

“He reminds me a lot of Lamine Yamal. Same style of player. He is a guy who does not care too much about anything. They don’t take life or themselves too seriously. If you ran into Palmer in the streets, you would never tell he is a footballer. But then he plays and…oof.

“He arrived at a tough time for Chelsea, when the team was struggling, and he made an impact from the start. That helped him a lot to keep growing and getting more confident. If you manage to get those kinds of players in a situation of confidence, they make the difference. I’m so happy and hope he carries on like this…but after this weekend!

“He is a special character. He is so serious. When people see him, it’s not like he is instantly likeable. It’s difficult to explain, but when any teammate sees me they instantly know I am up for a joke and that we can engage in that way. But he is always so serious.

“Still, we got along well, really quickly, since the first training sessions. We were doing mini-matches in training, five-a-side, and the coaches put us together in some. From there, we clicked. Whenever we were on the same team, we would never lose. We had this joke of being the winning team and that’s how our good bond started.”