Tuchel wins tactical battle as Pep hits panic button

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel was at pains to stress this Champions League final was about so much more than his tactical and personal battle with Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola – and yet the story of this showpiece will have both cast as its central characters.

Tuchel, a loser with Paris St-Germain against Bayern Munich in last season’s final, made no mistake with his second chance as he prepared and plotted to perfection to produce a finely tuned, intensely committed Chelsea side fully deserving the victory that saw them crowned champions of Europe for a second time.

In contrast, Guardiola chose to select a starting 11 he had never picked before in his time as City manager, gambling on an array of attacking talent to compensate for his decision not to use either of his outstanding midfield anchors Fernandinho or Rodri.

It was a move that left City riddled with confusion, lacking fluency, missing a midfield leader and reducing their attacking threat – in other words it was a selection that deprived the Premier League champions, so outstanding this season, of some of the elements that make them so special.

The most urgent was Guardiola “Pepping it up” again, taking a system that had worked superbly for months and then, for a key European game, radically altering it, bringing in Raheem Sterling, who has been out of sorts for a few weeks, and starting without either Fernandinho or Rodri for only the second time this season.

A more likely explanation is anxiety, induced by all those other defeats in big European knockout games that leads Guardiola to second-guess himself. Terrified by the prospect of being undone on the counter, the coach takes steps to avert his fate which themselves then cause that fate to come about.

As Tuchel celebrated with his family in front of joyous Chelsea fans gathered in Porto’s Estadio Do Dragao, owner Roman Abramovich beamed from the stands at yet another example of how his club turns the game’s normal rules upside down.

Credit: bbc.com

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