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Football London
Football London
Sport
Josh Williams

Chelsea have their answer to Pep Guardiola and Champions League final should concern Man City


Thomas Tuchel has recognised Chelsea's habit of winning since taking the reins at Stamford Bridge in January, having referenced the short-term nature of his appointment on several occasions.

"This is a club that has a culture, a structure, to win titles and win games consecutively," said the German. "Chelsea is the club that has the culture and the history and mentality to do so. I am here to win titles, I am here to win games and as a result, win titles."

He's made a strong start to life in England but if he's to truly live up to the standards that he's set, he will have to regularly outdo the man who he's set to face this weekend and in the Champions League final - Pep Guardiola.

The two coaches share a background, with Tuchel stating that the Spaniard 'taught him everything about the game' upon his arrival at Stamford Bridge.

The German reminisced about what he had learnt as a young coach from watching Guardiola's Barcelona outfit, stating: "Pep and Barcelona taught me that you can play nice and you can win everything. You can attack and still be intense in defending. You can do it using guys from the academy."

Tuchel has also referenced Arsene Wenger's Arsenal team and Louis van Gaal's Ajax as inspirations, with those figures integral to his development as coach.

The Blues have performed very much in the mould of a typical Guardiola team since the turn of the year, with constant control over proceedings, plenty of attacking players fielded in new positions and very few shots afforded on the defensive side of the game.

Both Tuchel and Guardiola impose governing playing styles, with the former recently stating: “We spend very few minutes and moments in training isolated on defence or attack. We don't try to divide the situations in an artificial way. Everybody needs to attack and everybody needs to defend."

The approach is very Cruyffian in many ways with a Dutch total football perspective on the game, but it certainly isn't easy to implement.

Tuchel was coaching Mainz when he first clashed with Guardiola - who was at Bayern Munich - and the two clashed further once the Chelsea boss stepped up to manage Borussia Dortmund after Jurgen Klopp's departure.

When they contested their first bout in England in the FA Cup some weeks ago, Tuchel actually ended up as the victor - winning 1-0 - and despite the short amount of time he's spent in the Premier League so far, Guardiola will be well aware of the threat that Chelsea pose to his success moving forward.

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