Havertz goal wins Champions League for Chelsea against Manchester City | Football News

PORTO (Portugal): A self-confessed admirer of Pep Guardiola, Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel got the better of his mentor as the Blues kept Manchester City waiting for Champions League glory by winning Saturday’s final 1-0.
Victory in Porto rounded off a rollercoaster five months for the German, who was sacked by Paris Saint-Germain on Christmas Eve and handed the chance to revive Chelsea’s fortunes less than a month later.

Chelsea were languishing ninth in the Premier League table at the time with owner Roman Abramovich seeing little return on his £220 million ($312 million) outlay on new players last summer under Frank Lampard.

Kai Havertz was the most expensive purchase of that splurge after his £71 million move from Bayer Leverkusen.

Getting the best out of Havertz was one of Tuchel’s major tasks and the 21-year-old came good on the biggest stage of all with the only goal three minutes before half-time.

Unlike Guardiola, Tuchel did not have a glittering playing career. A series of knee injuries forced him to retire at 25 and take up a job as a waiter, while he began his coaching career in the youth ranks of Stuttgart.

From afar he watched and was inspired as Guardiola won 14 trophies in four years at Barcelona before joining him in Germany where they battled for Bundesliga supremacy in charge of Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.
During Tuchel’s first meeting with Guardiola the two football obsessives talked long into the night using glasses and salt and pepper shakers to mimic formations.

“It’s easier to demonstrate a position or defending a position or building some gaps you can play through, and it’s easier to do this when you have some glasses and salt and pepper on the table,” Tuchel said this week.
“I was such a huge admirer of Pep when he was a player and then when he became a coach it was like learning on the job for me. I was an academy coach and then in the Bundesliga with Mainz, but I don’t think I missed a game because there was so much to learn.
“There was a lot of tactical talking and discussions and it was so interesting to hear his beliefs, his self-confidence and also the doubts in what he’s doing.”
The Catalan’s confidence will be shaken when he comes face-to-face with Tuchel again in the Premier League next season.
Tuchel did not win any of the first five clashes between the pair during his time at Mainz and Dortmund against Guardiola’s dominant Bayern side.