Thomas Tuchel: “We wanted to impose our style”

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel spoke to the press after his side drew 1 - 1 against Real Madrid at Estadio Alfredo di Stefano in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals on Tuesday night.

Our own Kiyan Sobhani asked the German about his strategy heading into the game, and whether or not he expected Zinedine Zidane to go with three at the back, and if it changed his game plan at all.

“We knew that they finished the last game and the game against Barcelona in a 5-3-2,” Tuchel began to explain. “We knew that there was the possibility that maybe they would switch their formation to adapt to our formation. In the end I thought that they would stay in their 4-3-3, which they usually play for 90-95 per cent of their matches. So we prepared for a 4-3-3.

“When we saw the line-up we had a quick talk in the dressing room to slightly change the moments against the ball, like who has to do what with the two strikers and the three in the middle. We had to adapt where we could push out, but only defensively. Offensively it didn’t change much.

“We wanted to impose our style and wanted to wait for what happens on the pitch, to see if we found the spaces that we predicted, and it went pretty much like that.

“It’s like this sometimes, you have to adapt, and the team did that very well and I am happy overall with how we tried it. We gave our everything and we got a more-than-deserved 1-1, so we will try again next week.”