The on Saturday won the Champions League final in Porto after defeating the Premier league champions, Manchester City.
Kai Havertz’s first champions league goal handed over Thomas Tuchel’s side glory since year 2012 when they last won it in a final against Bayern Munich.
Pundits have however, blamed the Manchester City’s boss, Pep Guadiola for the defeat suffered by the Qatari’s funded team. City started the game with no recognized striker and no holding/defensive midfielder. This gave the Chelsea’s talisman, Ngolo Kante opportunity to take over the control of the midfield.
Also, until Gabriel Jesus was introduced in the second half, City could not muster a touch in the Blue’s final third, let alone an attempt.
City’s march to their first Champions League final was accompanied by a sense of destiny – that their years of suffering in Europe’s elite tournament were about to end, especially after the manner in which they overcame Paris St-Germain in the semi-final.
Sadly for Guardiola’s side, the agony will go on after a final in which the Premier League champions failed miserably to do themselves justice and their Spanish manager played a part in their downfall as he tried to join Bob Paisley, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane in the select group to win this tournament three times.
Eyebrows were raised when he decided against utilising either of his outstanding holding midfield men Rodri and Fernandinho in favour of an all-out attacking line-up.
Introduction of Fernadinho and Sergio Aguero could not salvage Guadiola’s horrible night in Portugal as Chelsea stood against them at the back.
Tuchel, who lost the last year’s final to Bayern Munich while at Chelsea, also deserves some accolades for instilling passion, confidence and composure into Chelsea team that was bitterly battered during Frank Lampard’s era.
The German has transformed Chelsea since his arrival in January, making significant changes by restoring the towering Antonio Rudiger in central defence and playing the magnificent man-of-the-match N’golo Kante in the position in which he is quite simply a world-class operator.
