The Champions League is about to enter its final stage of competition with eight teams competing in the quarter-final games. Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel have had a rivalry across different teams like Bayern Munich, Mainz, Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City and Chelsea. We’re getting ready to see if there could be any surprise winners of the competition and how Chelsea or Manchester City will do as they are the only remaining Premier League representatives left.
Let’s take a look at some of the news we should pay attention to in sports. Do you know which teams made it to the quarter-finals in the Champions League?
Guardiola and Tuchel
Yesterday, Manchester City and Chelsea played a game. It was the first time Pep Guardiola (the manager of Man City) was going back to face his old team since he left Bayern Munich for Man City in 2016. He expected to see Julian Nagelsmann coach again (he had previously beaten his Hoffenheim twice in 2018-19), but recently Nagelsmann got fired and Thomas Tuchel replaced him instead – another name that Guardiola is pretty familiar with. After their match, Tuchel said something like it was the best or worst first meeting with Abramovich (who happens to own both clubs).
The managers have had 10 meetings over the last 10 years, with Guardiola winning 6 of them and Tuchel 3. These victories happened all in one go – between April 17th to May 29th of 2021. They even won the FA Cup semi-finals and Champions League final against City. In those finals, Guardiola chose a gamble by not playing a defensive midfielder that failed on his side.
Last season, City was able to beat Tuchel’s Chelsea twice in the Premier League. Actually, Guardiola has won four out of five matches against them including the 2016 DFB-Pokal final.
Since Guardiola left Barcelona, he had faced them four times already with his two different teams (City and Bayern). He won two times but lost twice with both matches’ score being 3-0 or 4-0 defeats.
Can Lampard Repeat the History of Chelsea’s Champions League Wins?
At the start of 2020-21 season, Frank Lampard was the manager at Chelsea. They won the Champions League with Thomas Tuchel as the manager in that same year.
For 2022-23, Tuchel is back in charge and now it’s Lampard’s turn to try to lead Chelsea to win the Champions League again.
Four people have managed Chelsea this season including Potter and Saltor who both got sacked.
He really wants to continue a special club tradition of winning a European title in his first season as manager, which is actually his second time leading the team. Interestingly, Chelsea have won their last five European trophies under managers who were just hired that year. And four of those occurred during the season and three happened after the Christmas holiday!
Last week, Potter had the chance to join an exclusive club but unfortunately was fired instead. Bruno also had the same opportunity, although he was only meant to stay on until the end of this season.
In 2022 though, it’s likely that Tuchel will take over who had started in January and may win the Champions League. Moreover, Maurizio Sarri won the 2019 Europa League during his one year as Chelsea’s boss.
Rafael Benitez coached Liverpool, and then he took over at Chelsea in November. Before, Roberto di Matteo was the coach for a couple of months and won them the Champions League trophy. Even earlier than that, Gianluca Vialli became both a player and coach at Chelsea who led them to winning the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
Dave Sexton is the only manager to help Chelsea achieve a European trophy over one year into his reign. Can Lampard, who won a Champions League with Chelsea in 2011-12, also become part of that exclusive group? They have to go through European powerhouse Real Madrid to get there – yet Chelsea have done well against them before, only losing once in seven matchups.
The percentage of games lost against Real Madrid is the lowest (14%) out of all teams that have played them five or more times in Europe.
“Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is an amazing player with a great story. Nine months ago, nobody knew him. He was just playing in Georgian and Russian leagues, as well as the Europa Conference League. But this season he has amazed everyone by helping his team, Napoli, beat AC Milan and give them a tough game although they lost to them too.
Giorgi Kvaratskhelia is becoming a superstar and is playing for one of the top teams in Europe, Napoli. In Italy’s Serie A league, he has scored 12 goals (second place to only four players) and 10 assists (more than anyone else). Other than him, only Lionel Messi, Neymar, Randal Kolo Muani and Bukayo Saka from Paris St-Germain, Frankfurt and Arsenal have double figures in both goals and assists within the top five European leagues.
Kvaratskhelia has the most assists in the Champions League with four. Napoli is hoping for an easy match-up against AC Milan, but the team lost to them 4-0 earlier this month. AC Milan currently sits 22 points lower than Napoli on the table.
Benfica’s Remarkable Comeback Despite Multi-Million Dollar Player Departures!
This season, the two Benfica forwards Joao Mario and Goncalo Ramos are scoring at the top in the Portuguese league. That is surprising because Benfica has sold a lot of players for over £200 million! For example, there was one striker called Darwin Nunez who went to Liverpool for an expensive fee of between £64 and £85 million. Another player, Enzo Fernandez, moved from Benfica to Chelsea for a whopping £107 million. Even more than 30 other players have left the club this season! But even with all those players gone, it seems like Benfica can’t be beaten thanks to their amazing manager Roger Schmidt.
Since appointing the previous manager from PSV in summer, they have only lost twice in 46 competitions. But unfortunately, one of them was just recently at home with Porto. They also managed to be on top of the Champions League group full of famous teams like PSG and Juventus, where they gathered 13 more points than the Italians. This great effort ended up costing Scott Parker his job. As for now, they’re seven points ahead of Porto as they get close to winning their first trophy since 2019.
This is an exciting time for soccer fans because two Italian soccer teams will decide if we get to watch a European Cup Final match again like in 1990. Whoever wins between Inter and either AC Milan or Napoli will play the final match. Don’t miss this chance to be part of history by voting!
