Defiant Thomas Tuchel is daring to dream of a great Champions League comeback at Real Madrid - and has ordered his men to defy history.
The Chelsea boss saw his side crushed 3-1 in the first leg of their quarter-final first leg with Karim Benzema blasting a superb hat-trick. Just one of 43 sides in the competition's history has overturned a two-goal deficit suffered in the first leg at home.
But Tuchel said: “We need nothing else than a fantastic script that we want to be able to overcome this. We are always allowed to dream. It is sometimes important to imagine things and to dream about them, but it will not shift the focus from the fact that we need to deliver and we need to be ready tomorrow.”
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The defending European Champions were back to their free-scoring best in the Premier League at the weekend as they slaughtered Southampton 6-0. Tuchel will again be without Callum Hudson-Odoi and Romelu Lukaku but he maintained heads would not be dropping with the odds against his side.
He added: “What chance do we have? Not the biggest chance, given the first game’s result, given the competition, the opponent and the stadium we play in.
"But we’ve never managed our input and our effort and our belief by the chances we have for a result. We have never done that and we will not start now.”
Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid warmed up for the showdown with a routine 2-0 win over Getafe to maintain a 12-point lead over Barcelona at the top of La Liga and to extend their fine recent run to seven wins from their last eight games.
