Thomas Tuchel delivers verdict on Chelsea’s 1-1 draw against Real Madrid in Champions League

Thomas Tuchel rued Chelsea missed chances as they had to settle for a 1-1 draw against Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final clash.

Chelsea took the lead after 14 minutes through Christian Pulisic who rounded Thibaut Courtois before cooly slotted it into the back of the net. 

But chances came often for the Blues in the first half to extend their lead, with Timo Werner having the most notable chance for the Blues but Courtois denied him from four yards out.

Karim Benzema punished the Blues with a stellar volley to secure a 1-1 draw for the Los Blancos heading into the second-leg at Stamford Bridge next week. 

On the draw in Madrid, Tuchel reflected: “Our goal was well deserved, and we should have won the first half. We should have scored minimum one more.

“We started the game very well, very aggressive with a lot of courage and a lot of quality.

“We had many ball wins, good control, good attacks, good switch of play, very confident, we looked very strong.

(Photo by Ruben Albarran / PRESSINPHOTO)

“We deserved to win the first half. We had a lot of chances and half-chances where we missed precision in the last ball to have more opportunities to score. Unfortunately they scored from a set-piece, there was nothing else normally for us to defend and we did not allow any chances so it was a bit of a disappointing result at half-time.”

He added: “We fought back into the game and I felt the second half was a very tactical game.

“The speed and intensity dropped and we were a bit tired with only two days between two away games. We suffered today from that. If we had one more day to recover it would have been a big chance to keep the intensity up and maybe hurt Madrid also in the second half.”

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