Tuchel’s fears come true as Benzema grabs hat-trick...with little bit of help from Mendy
IT is no consolation, but Thomas Tuchel was right about one thing.
Karim Benzema is certainly a “stand-out” player.
Catastrophically, for 86 minutes, before he was replaced by Gareth Bale to a standing ovation from the away fans, he was also a “stoodoff” player.
Chelsea’s defenders seemed determined to give him the freedom of Stamford Bridge to showcase the immense talent that Tuchel had been crooning about in the pre-match press conference.
It was surprising to hear a manager talk of an opponent quite so gushingly before a major match and perhaps Chelsea’s defenders took it to heart.
It started from the moment Andreas Christensen watched as Benzema’s sublime back-heel teed up Federico Valverde, who fed Vinicius Junior to smash the ball against the bar in the 10th minute. It should have been a warning. Instead, he was the player they failed to pick up in the 21st minute as Vinicius burst to the goal-line to cut the ball back and sure enough, a moment later, it was headed towards the corner with Edouard Mendy’s fingers flailing hopeless out of it.
This, it turned out, was just the start.
Three minutes later he drifted away from Thiago Silva just as effortlessly, Luka Modric landed the ball on his head, and Chelsea were two goals down.
The 4-1 defeat against Brentford on Saturday was supposed to be a wake-up call and certainly the Chelsea crowd has responded to the call to up their game.
With LA Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly among them representing one of the four preferred bidders, this is a significant week in the history of Chelsea, with the future of the club perhaps even being decided before the second leg.
“Champions of Europe, we know what we are,” the Matthew Harding Stand sang and briefly the memories came flooding back.
Five minutes before half-time Jorginho found Kai Havertz free inside the area and the Chelsea hero from last May’s final found the back of the net again.
But do not forget Benzema for a moment.
Within two minutes he should have had his hat-trick. A cross from Vinicius was intercepted by Jorginho briefly and although Benzema stayed on his feet to shoot, this time it was just wide. Chelsea should have used that lifeline to build something to take to the Bernabeu next Tuesday. Not even close.
Within 45 seconds, Mendy’s attempt to chest the ball down and knock it short to Antonio Rudiger was too short, and guess who was there.
Benzema could not believe his luck as he rolled the ball into the empty net from 30 yards away. Carlo Ancelotti had passed a negative PCR test in the morning and dashed to the airport to take his place in the dugout – he would not have wanted to miss this for the world. Tuchel, left, by contrast, did not look at all happy – jumping around his technical area with too much angry energy and no way to release it. What he could release, though, was Romelu Lukaku – and sure enough the £97.5million striker was thrown on after 64 minutes. Within seven minutes he had been served up two of those towering headers he is supposed to be the best in Europe at burying. Both went wide, the second from just six yards out.
He followed it up with an 18-yard shot just over the bar for good measure.
It could have been a tale of two strikers and an intriguing rematch in Spain.
Sadly, for Chelsea only one of them did the business.
One cannot help that Tuchel suspected that would be the case before even a ball was kicked.