Porto, Portugal:
Chelsea won the Champions League for the second time as a Kai Havertz target secured a tense 1- victory more than Manchester City in Saturday’s final in Porto, shattering Pep Guardiola’s dream of lifting the trophy for the third time, a decade on from his last triumph.
Havertz rounded Ederson to score 3 minutes ahead of half-time at the Estadio do Dragao and the Chelsea players ran to the far finish of the pitch to celebrate with the German.
Coach Thomas Tuchel, complete of power on the touchline just like his opposite quantity, punched the air in celebration, and later jumped with joy on the pitch right after Chelsea held on for victory in the second half as City lost distraught skipper Kevin De Bruyne to injury.
The London club might have completed fourth in the Premier League, a big 19 points behind the champions City, but this, remarkably, was their third win more than Guardiola’s side in six weeks.
They shattered City’s hopes of a domestic treble when they triumphed in the FA Cup semi-finals in April and then delayed their title celebrations with victory in Manchester.
Now, in a final watched by a restricted crowd of just more than 14,000 fans who made a raucous atmosphere, they have denied City the initially Champions League crown they and Guardiola so crave.
Abramovich’s second European Cup
City have had to wait 13 years considering that getting taken more than by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour just to get to the Champions League final.
They are now the seventh consecutive group to drop in their initially look at this stage. The very same misfortune befell Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain last year as effectively as Tottenham Hotspur when they have been beaten by Liverpool in the last all-English final in 2019.
Chelsea also lost when they initially got to the final, succumbing on penalties against Manchester United in Moscow in 2008.
They overcame the final hurdle by beating Bayern Munich, also in a shoot-out, in 2012 and now they have their second European Cup to move level with Juventus, Benfica and Porto as effectively as a different English side, Nottingham Forest.
Their transformation into one of Europe’s super clubs has been down to the riches of Roman Abramovich, their Russian oligarch owner who was in attendance at the game in Portugal.
Chelsea have been transformed considering that the appointment as coach in January of Tuchel, but City have been nevertheless the favourites off the back of their third Premier League title triumph in 4 seasons.
Feeding off the power of the crowd in a stadium that Portuguese authorities had permitted to be filled to a third of its capacity — all fans needed unfavorable Covid-19 tests to obtain entry — each teams played with a level of intensity seldom seen in the last year of football in empty grounds.
Havertz’s marquee moment
City pressed higher but struggled to difficulty Edouard Mendy in the Chelsea target, when at the other finish Timo Werner really should have performed much better than shoot straight at Ederson in the 14th minute.
Chelsea then suffered an injury blow as an emotional Thiago Silva was forced off hurt, Andreas Christensen taking the Brazilian’s spot in central defence.
Yet it was they who opened the scoring in the 42nd minute, Mason Mount’s ball splitting the City defence with John Stones out of position, enabling Havertz — their marquee 71 million-pound ($100m) signing last summer time — to go about the lunging Ederson and convert into an empty net.
City now required to break down a Chelsea defence that has been exceptional considering that Tuchel came in.
But they lost De Bruyne just ahead of the hour mark, the brilliant Belgian taken out in a collision with Antonio Ruediger that appeared to leave him concussed.
He came off in tears, and Guardiola rather turned to Sergio Aguero for the latter stages, but there was to be no glorious send-off as a City player for the Argentine, even if a Riyad Mahrez shot sailed just more than in the sixth minute of injury time.
There was also no third European Cup for Guardiola, who remains one adrift of the record for the coaches with most wins in the competitors, held jointly by Bob Paisley, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane.
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