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Coach Tuchel at his career summit: “We are the stone in Man City’s shoe”

Champions-League-Sieger Chelsea
Coach Tuchel at his career summit: “We are the stone in Man City’s shoe”

At the end of a long night of football at the Dragao Stadium in Porto: Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel with his family.

© David Ramos / Getty Images

Chelsea FC is climbing Europe’s football summit for the second time. In the duel of tactical tinkerers, Thomas Tuchel proves to be a spoilsport for Pep Guardiola again. A German is also the decisive figure on the pitch.

At the preliminary career summit, Thomas Tuchel got really sentimental. At the moment of the Champions League victory with Chelsea, the German coach felt like he was “in a movie” and wanted to share all his happiness with his family. “When I think about it, I start to cry. I know how happy they are, for them it is now,” said the 47-year-old football teacher, visibly agitated. His parents, wife Sissi and their two daughters saw in the Estádio do Dragão in Porto how Tuchel won his first international title as a coach. “That’s the best, to be honest,” enthused the Chelsea coach.

The 1-0 (1-0) against Manchester City also served as Tuchel’s masterpiece, after losing 1-0 with Paris Saint-Germain in the final against Bayern Munich a year ago. He lost his job in Paris shortly before Christmas Eve, and six months later he led Chelsea to Europe’s football throne. After Jürgen Klopp with FC Liverpool in 2019 and Munich’s Hansi Flick in 2020, he is the third German winning coach in the Champions League in a row. “A very large part” had Tuchel in the upswing of the “Blues”, assured defender Antonio Rüdiger hoarsely from the cheers.

As the bottom of the table in the Premier League, Tuchel took over Chelsea at the end of January and lifted them to fourth place by the end of the season. The Londoners lost the FA Cup final against Leicester City, but they were the winners in the biggest game of the season. “For me, a childhood dream is coming true,” said winning goal scorer Kai Havertz on the Sky microphone. After all, as a mini-kicker he played the goals of earlier Champions League finals with his friends.

With his tongue out, the 21-year-old celebrated his decisive goal in the 42nd minute, it was his first goal in Europe’s most important club competition. “It’s an incredible feeling,” Havertz later admitted after petting the pot. For more than 130 million euros, Chelsea had signed him and national team colleague Timo Werner before this season. Again and again both had to struggle with doubts and criticism. “I don’t give a shit right now,” said Havertz when asked whether he had repaid his high transfer fee.

Werner said: “That’s why we came here, that’s why we were bought.” His team wanted it more than Man City and stuck together during the difficult phases of the season. And the striker, who had created space for Havertz with a clever sprint at the winning goal, praised Tuchel as the developer of the young players in the team.

Third win of the season against Manchaster

For the Chelsea coach it was the third win in the third game of the season against the champions from Manchester. “We felt it yesterday, we felt it the day before yesterday. We are the stone in Man City’s shoe,” said Tuchel. His first path after winning the title led him to city coach Pep Guardiola, whom he admires and with whom he once debated tactics for hours in a Munich restaurant with salt and pepper shakers.

Perhaps because of his respect for tinkerer Tuchel, Guardiola had chosen a formation in the first Champions League final for Man City that should prove to be wrong. “I don’t know who he wanted to prove something to. Even such a trainer should learn: Shoemaker, stick to your last,” complained Sky expert Lothar Matthäus.

Instead of using the tactics that were so successful recently in the league, with which the defensive was strengthened and Ilkay Gündogan became the central figure, Guardiola unsettled his team with new stylistic elements. “I definitely wanted to win the game with this line-up, the players knew exactly what to do,” said the Catalan. But his team seemed overwhelmed by Guardiola’s ideas and hardly had a real chance to score. “We lacked the inspiration,” admitted Guardiola.

While Chelsea patron Roman Abramowitsch was able to post the Champions League on the credit side for the second time after the triumph of Munich in 2012, the billion-dollar project Manchester City, funded from Abu Dhabi, continued to fail. Guardiola missed the triumph in the premier class in the Cityzens for the fifth year after three unsuccessful attempts with FC Bayern. “We’ll be back,” said the 50-year-old defiantly.

tib / DPA

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