Chelsea have a fines system that is manned by the manager and captains, and the list of no-nos is pinged to their players’ group chat at the start of the season.
Late for training? That’s a fine. Late on a game day? Oof, that’s a double fine, and yes, we’re talking thousands.
Marc Cucurella has never had to pay such a penalty in his three years with Chelsea. Not for being late. Not for leaving his filthy socks in the middle of the changing-room floor. Not for forgetting to switch his mobile to silent mode when Enzo Maresca is conducting a team meeting.
Descriptions of the 26-year-old Spaniard, relayed to Mail Sport anonymously by his colleagues at their Cobham training ground this week, included how he is ‘first in, last out’, ‘ultra diligent’, ‘bundles of energy’, ‘the most likeable guy in the building’, ‘misunderstood as a player and person’, and at the risk of winning him a new ‘Cucu Clock’ nickname, ‘always on time’.
That impeccable timing has helped Chelsea this season, with no Premier League defender having scored more goals than Cucurella after Maresca told him to start arriving in the box. They work on it in training, and it was his header from Reece James’ cross which secured a 1-0 win over Manchester United to set up Sunday’s Champions League super-showdown with Nottingham Forest.
We will get to how he went from hated to rated as Chelsea’s chief threat for that Champions League decider at the City Ground, but first, you cannot pen a profile piece on Cucurella without covering the obvious: the hair. He is the footballer you could identify solely from a silhouette, as likely as anyone to secure a shampoo sponsorship as a side hustle.
Marc Cucurella celebrates after scoring the winner to beat Manchester United last week and set up a final-day Champions League shootout
The Spaniard has never had to pay a fine in his three years at Chelsea since leaving Brighton
There is a cute reason for his flopping mop beyond it being a curly homage to his Spanish idol Carles Puyol
Yet there is a cute reason for his flopping mop beyond it being a curly homage to his Spanish idol Carles Puyol. Cucurella grew his hair by request of his mother, Patricia, who wanted an easy way to spy him when she was watching him as a youth footballer for Espanyol and then Barcelona.
Clearly, the style stuck, and the added bonus now is it enables his three children, Mateo, Rio and Bella, to easily spot him from the stands themselves. After his seven goals this season, they have gotten used to seeing papi performing his penguin celebration, dedicated to them and his other half, Claudia Rodriguez, after Cucurella once read that they pick one partner for life.
As a couple, they are a team and the stars of the Amazon Prime show Married to the Game, a programme in which they have spoken openly and through tears of the challenges they faced after relocating to London following Cucurella’s £63million move from Brighton in August 2022.
Mateo, their eldest child at five years old, was diagnosed with autism and it took time for his parents to find the perfect school in which he could thrive. Thankfully, they now have, and Cucurella says there is no satisfaction quite like seeing Mateo make progress.
There was also the night their new home was burgled. The family lost around £62,000 worth of goods in the break-in, but more costly than losing some Louis Vuitton handbags was it robbed them of their peace of mind, leaving Claudia Rodriguez afraid of sleeping alone with her children when her husband was out of the house. They increased their security after that incident.
The holidays to Disneyland Paris, the regular rewatching of their favourite film The Lion King, the pranks played on one another – the Cucurella family is one of love. The Spaniard himself can be something of a big kid, travelling with his Nintendo Switch on the Chelsea team bus and needing no second invitation to tell you why John Cena is such a legend of wrestling.
These were testing times for him personally, however, and professionally, all this coincided with Cucurella’s football faltering as his 2022-23 campaign saw supporters liken him to Sideshow Bob.
Manchester City were also in talks to sign him at the start of that season, but word is they told their Brighton counterparts they would congratulate them at the next Premier League board meeting if they managed to secure more than £50m for their asset.
Cucurella and his partner Claudia Rodriguez are stars of the Amazon Prime show Married to the Game
Cucurella spoke openly and through tears of the challenges that he and Rodriguez have faced
Manchester City told Brighton that they would never get £50m for their left back
The story goes that Cucurella’s camp then missed two phone calls from an unknown number. A text followed, and it was Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly, inviting them to his villa on the Greek island of Mykonos. An agreement worth £56m rising to £63m with Brighton followed, but Thomas Tuchel was sacked within five weeks of Cucurella signing for Chelsea.
Tuchel’s replacement, Graham Potter, tried using him as a third centre back, which led to him being hooked at half-time versus Aston Villa and after only 36 minutes against Manchester United in October 2022.
Chelsea fans booed his introduction as a substitute in a Champions League loss to Borussia Dortmund that same season. Cucurella likes watching back his performances for analysis purposes, and presumably muted that footage.
‘That was incredibly tough on him,’ says one source who was at the club at the time, not least as he had his own issues away from the public sphere. He was linked with a loan to Manchester United but no agreement could be reached financially after a £2m proposal was submitted by their Premier League rivals and rejected.
Cucurella stayed, but Potter’s successor, Mauricio Pochettino, preferred using a centre back, Levi Colwill, at left back over him. A turning point arrived in a trip to Aston Villa in April 2024. Trailing 2-0 at half-time, with Cucurella having scored an own goal, Pochettino made a tactical tweak. He told Cucurella to invert into midfield for the second half, Chelsea came back to draw 2-2, and then won their next five games to qualify for Europe.
Before that summer’s European Championship, Gary Neville suggested Cucurella was a reason why Spain would not win the tournament. But then? Then, they did. Then, the memes started, mocking up Roberto Carlos with his own bushy barnet. Then, he returned to Chelsea, snapping into challenges and winding up opponents for fun and winning over his critics. Then, supporters sang his name, chanting that he ‘eats paella’, ‘drinks Estrella’ and his ‘hair is f***ing massive’.
That remains a favourite song at Stamford Bridge, with Cucurella suddenly considered well worth his £63m fee and no longer seen as a figure of their supposed obsession with Brighton.
He is particularly close with Enzo Fernandez – another who has had to show defiance in winning over his critics since signing for £106.8m – with the Spanish speakers in the Chelsea squad all having their own group chat on the go.
Cucurella hit back at Gary Neville after defying the presenter’s prediction that he would cost Spain a shot at Euro 2024 glory
Chelsea fans booed his introduction as a substitute in a Champions League loss to Borussia Dortmund in 2023
He is particularly close with Enzo Fernandez – another who has had to show defiance in winning over his critics since signing for £106.8m
Cucurella and Fernandez are similar in that they are both good at getting under opponents’ skins with neither afraid of being annoying. That needle is needed, with Maresca managing the youngest side in the Premier League and not wanting them to be seen as naive pushovers by rivals.
It was following last Friday’s home victory over Manchester United that Cucurella was grabbed by the club’s other co-owner Behdad Eghbali as he approached the tunnel. Eghbali is desperate for a return to the Champions League next season, and his headed goal was crucial. The Blues hierarchy are appreciative of the job he is doing, and once this summer’s Club World Cup is over, there is a plan to evaluate who is worthy of a contract bump among the players.
Moises Caicedo is towards the top of the list after being named both the players’ and supporters’ player of the season, but you suspect Cucurella is not lagging too far behind. Some at the club say he would also have been a worthy winner of those awards, particularly as nobody has scored more goals for Chelsea in 2025 than their left back.
Chances are the City Ground will jeer Cucurella tomorrow because all they see is a wacky-haired wind-up. But there will be no boos from the Chelsea away end. Only celebrations if their new cult hero can put in another performance which takes them back to the Champions League.
