Champions League Final | City - Chelsea | Chelsea, the best team in Europe & "Magician Pep: he doesn't lose even when he loses"

Chelsea sailed five months adrift and why Abramovich had to be charged to a myth, Frank Lampard , but had failed to move his legend to the bench 'blue'. The team was a coin toss and was ninth in the Premier. He was in the second round of the Champions League and there seemed little he had to do with Atlético del Cholo. Today it is the European champion for the second time in its history , a cup lifted to the sky of Porto that credits it as the best continental football team of the moment. And so it is. Not always the best win, but this time there is no discussion. A few years ago no one would have imagined it.

Read more:Could Guardiola Leave City If He Wins The Champions League?

With Lampard gone, Chelsea bet on Thomas Tuchel, a manager fired at the end of last year from PSG and signed by the London club in January. It didn't take long for the German to find equipment and transform it from beginning to end. Few such meteoric transformations are remembered in recent times. From mess to great equipment. From holes on all four sides to having almost none.

Tuchel not only fixed the damage but has turned him into an iron team, European champions, who have portrayed Atlético and Real Madrid and also Manchester City , defeated in the Champions League final and in their last three games with the 'blues'.

The keys to the change

Chelsea went from night to day. From receiving goals as someone who does not want the thing to that to do one you have to do much more than break a stone. From having broken nets to not conceding a single goal in 19 of the 30 games with the German in charge.

Tuchel has turned a team adrift into a champion . Chelsea have won the Champions League, but before they did their homework, finishing fourth (they were seven points away from the maximum privilege zone before Thomas' arrival). The 'blue' team was also given to reach the final of the FA Cup, although they lost it to Leicester, the only lunar in a historic year.

Chelsea is an author team, a tremendous author. If there is something that defines Tuchel's team, it is his extraordinary defensive solidity, added to the arrows he throws when the rival lowers his guard. With three centrals and Azpilicueta at the helm, with Havertz and Werner , the summer signings on the field to take advantage of them. With Kanté everywhere and Mason Mount fulfilling the dreams he had as a child when he wore his blue shirt every day.

"Nobody was counting on us and here we are. That's the beauty of football. People believed that with Atlético it was our last step, but we have gone game by game and here we are." And that's where Azpilicueta , the one who speaks, was placed , right in the place where the European Cup is raised.

That is the beauty of football. People believed that with Atlético it was our last step, but we have gone game by game and here we are

César Azpilicueta, Chelsea captain

The new champion of the Champions is the result of a transformation for history. Tuchel, who signed until 2022 with the option to extend his contract , is already preparing his new signature. The same one that Chelsea has, the new King of Europe.

I think that if Pep Guardiola did not have a legion of fans who will defend tooth and nail whatever happens as romantics cross novena, if it came not starring in a epics that look more like a Venezuelan soap opera, is I mean, if he were treated with a certain normality , then Pep would be even more legendary than he is.

Pep has just lost a Champions League final , remember. They lost, I insist, 1-0 to Chelsea in Porto.

At the moment he does not know how to win a European Cup without Messi , but that is not a serious defect. Zidane has not done it without Cristiano either. And Phil Jackson had Jordan and Pippen first, then Kobe and Shaq and a little later Kobe and Pau Gasol. The greatest coaches in history, even them, don't score goals.

Read also: Guardiola's Revalidation

The problem with Pep is that he never fails, he never hits it. And yes, failure is an ugly word in sports. Pep is not a failure, far from it. He tried it with City, reached the final and was unable to tear down Chelsea's wall, as happened before with the Spanish champion, Atlético , and the great specialist of the tournament, Real Madrid . He has just won the Premier, his teams are playing marvelously, he also conquered Germany with Bayern and you don't need to remember much of his Barça : he is immortal.

But the eternal appreciation of the character is tiresome, who seems never to be wrong when exalted. We knew, because that's how it has been broadcast ad nauseam, that he had an assistant coach, Lillo , as if the coaches of the elite teams had no shoulders to lean on.

Yesterday we discovered that it is a value to kiss the medal of the runner-up , something that the reviled Zidane did not do because he never lost, or to present a lineup without a defensive midfielder , in a genius that devotees of the single thought have already been quick to value. It's so cool to play without a defensive midfielder that the MVP of the final was ... Kanté. Pep also began to build a story as soon as the game was over, "it was our first time." Because the City of the investment of 623 million euros is somehow poor.

Pep is divine, of course he is, and at the same time mortal, just a soccer coach. One of the greats, who wins and who loses. It is not necessary to celebrate their defeats with the smile of the resentful one. But neither does it isolate him from the blows in the bubble of infallibles, in the realm of justifications. He is a magician whose top hat also fails. So much blessing generates rejection and the reality is that it is so good that it should only provoke admiration.

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