Chelsea forward Joao Pedro felt Paris Saint-Germain briefly “lost their heads” as frustration boiled over following the Club World Cup final.
The Brazilian ended up on the ground after becoming involved in an incident with PSG coach Luis Enrique after the final whistle blew in Sunday’s final in New York.
PSG, the Champions League winners and strong favourites, crashed to a shock 3-0 loss at the hands of the Blues at the MetLife Stadium.
Tempers frayed in the closing stages and the French side finished with 10 men after Joao Neves was sent off for pulling the hair of Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella.
Further scuffles then broke out after the game as personnel from both benches entered the field.
The incident involving Joao Pedro, one of the Chelsea goalscorers, and Enrique appeared the most serious but neither party shared much detail on what occurred.
“I don’t need to talk about them,” said Joao Pedro. “Everyone wants to win the game and, in the end, I think they lost their heads.
“But this is football. This has happened. Now we need to enjoy it because we won the tournament, that’s it.
“I don’t want to talk too much about them because you know how it works. Football is this.”
For his part, Enrique said he was trying to separate players and prevent a heated situation from becoming worse.
Joao Pedro, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Achraf Hakimi were all involved in a confrontation before Enrique interjected. He appeared to raise an arm and Joao Pedro fell down amid the melee.
Enrique said: “I have no problem expressing my feelings at the end of the game in a high level of pressure. It’s very stressful for all of us. It is going to be impossible to avoid that.
“Everybody was involved. It was not what was best and the end result of the pressure of the match.
“I have seen (Chelsea manager Enzo) Maresca. I saw he had pushed others and we had to separate all the players and I do not know where that pressure came from.
“But this is a situation we must all avoid, that goes without saying. My intention was to separate the footballers so the situation didn’t become worse.”
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