5 reasons why Chelsea won’t win the 2021 Champions League final
Once again, football fans will be served with another all-English final for the second time in two years as Manchester City and Chelsea battle for the most coveted trophy in European club football.
For the 8th time in the competition’s history, two teams from the same country will be playing in the final of the Champions League and Chelsea vs Manchester City will be the third all-English final in the history of the competition.
It is Manchester City’s first ever Champions League final appearance while Chelsea will be playing in their third.
Without a doubt, Chelsea and Manchester City have been the best teams enroute to the final and they deserved their spots given the quality of teams they played in the knockout rounds.
Except for Chelsea fans who believed in their team, neutrals didn’t give the Blues a chance against former Champions, Real Madrid in the semi-finals final. However, Chelsea showed uncommon resilience over two legs as they dumped Los Blancos out of the competition.
That semi-final win made Tomas Tuchel the first manager in the history of the Champions League to play in back-to-back finals with two different teams.
City’s triumph over Dortmund and PSG especially showed Pep Guardiola’s tactical prowess with which we are already familiar anyway.
The final is poised to be an interesting one given the quality of players on the pitch as well as the tactical proficiency of both managers on the sidelines.
However, here are 5 reasons why we think Chelsea won’t win the competition this year:
1. With the final moved to the Estadio Do Dragao, Chelsea’s chances of winning have been dealt another huge blow. The Blues have lost two matches and drawn one in the stadium in their last five visits.
2. Thomas Tuchel has never won a European final and he will be squaring up against Pep Guardiola who has won the trophy twice (2009 and 2011). His last attempt was a 1-0 loss to six-time Champions, Bayern Munich 2020.
3. With Raheem Sterling, Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus who have 6 goals among them this season in the Champions League, Manchester City has a better squad depth to change the course of the game as opposed to Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud, Timo Werner and Calum Hudson-Odoi.
4. Manchester City’s successes in the knockout rounds have come at the expense of playing Kevin De Bruyne as a false nine who is flanked by Mahrez and Phil Foden – a system he failed to use in the losses against Chelsea recently. The Blues will struggle to man-mark any of these three players as they will alternate positions all through the match.
5. Pep Guardiola has never lost a European final as he boasts of a perfect 100% record in both finals in 2009 and 2011.
Both teams play a similar type of football with different set-ups and they have both enjoyed a stellar run en route to the final.
However, Manchester City will most likely hand Chelsea their second European final defeat from another English team just like it happened in 2008 against Manchester United.
