Thomas Tuchel has insisted his players are ready to beat the best team in the world and win the Champions League.
Tuchel believes Chelsea can “bridge the gap” and overcome Manchester City for a third time this season as he says his stars can cause another upset against Pep Guardiola’s men.
Chelsea won at the Etihad earlier this month and beat them in the FA Cup semi final and, even though Tuchel says Guardiola’s men are the best team on the planet, he insists he has total faith in his team.
Blues boss Tuchel said: “Maybe they are the strongest team in Europe and maybe the world and they have built a huge gap between them and us in the league but we closed the gap for 90 minutes.
“At Wembley, we closed the gap again for 90 minutes and that’s what we want to do again tomorrow.
“We are very well aware that Manchester City are the benchmark in football but in football you can close the gap and we closed the gap twice, how did we close the gap?
“We were courageous, we were brave and we suffered together and we had a strong belief and a strong quality.
“We have the experience of how much we have to suffer. It’s always tough to play against City, Bayern or Barcelona when Pep is on the sidelines because he creates a team with huge success and a winning mentality.”
Tuchel also revealed that N’Golo Kante and Edouard Mendy will be fit to start and delivered a rabble rousing pre-match speech but has also urged his players to be relaxed in the build-up so they are ready and fired up for the game.
Tuchel added: “I would say that I have full trust in everybody. It is about hunger and how bad do you want it but I felt us concentrated, focused and disciplined in the build up. We have a mean confidence which is nice to have in a final.
"We are not over-excited to be here, we want to be over-excited for the match, to win the trophy. Maybe we are slight underdogs but that changes nothing.
"In the end, I want to encourage them to be brave, take actions, stay active, defend and attack with aggression and that we try to be the very best and we have no regrets after the game.”
Sign up to the Mirror Football email here for the latest news and transfer gossip.
