Congratulations to Chelsea, Champions of Europe

The curtains for European club football 2020-21 came down this morning. Kudos to Chelsea Football Club for securing their second Champions League title. Manchester City continues a curious statistic whereby debutants in Champions League finals have not been champions for twenty-one years dating back to when Valencia lost 3-0 to Real Madrid.



Ruthless Abramovich

I remember when Chelsea legend, Frank Lampard was surprisingly sacked mid-season. My Chelsea-supporting friend was perplexed and was complimentary of Manchester United keeping faith in Ole Gunnar Solksjaer. With hindsight now, that decision to sack Lampard and replace him with Thomas Tuchel seems very wise indeed. It reflects the ruthless European style nature of management at Chelsea under Roman Abramovich. There is no room for patience and no time for a manager to patiently build a team. The pro of this approach is that it will guarantee the club continued success and they will not go long without winning silverware. The last time Chelsea won any silverware was the Europa League in the 2018-19 season. The con however is that it is unlikely for Chelsea to build a dynasty the way Liverpool and Manchester United have done in the past.

Pragmatic Tuchel

On Tuchel, he has surprised me by employing pragmatic, Italian-style tactics of keeping the defence tight and hitting swiftly on the counter-attack. I have known him to be a typically modern German manager with an emphasis on playing swift one-touch, two-touch attacking football pressing from the front. I am not sure if this was a needs must approach and he would revert to his usual style after a full pre-season or is this the new Tuchel. Whatever the case, it has been very effective this season as the Champions League triumph proves. However, as much as this victory belongs to Tuchel and his tactics, it belongs to Lampard and the signings he made as well.

Team Effort

It’s not bad that for a player that has been labelled a flop, Kai Havertz started the final and scored the winning goal. He deserved his goal as he was always floating in from the right in the hole between City’s defence and midfield creating a lot of good openings in the game. N’Golo Kante will get a lot of plaudits for a perfect performance in central midfield while the defenders behind him, Recce James, Cesar Azpilicueta, Thiago Silva, later replaced by Andreas Christensen, Antonio Rudiger and Ben Chilwell formed a wall in front of goalkeeper Edouard Mendy. Timo Werner ran the channels well but fluffed his lines. Mason Mount played a great assist for the winning goal. All in all, this victory belonged to the whole club from the owners down to the players and fans.

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