Manchester Metropolis and Pep Guardiola have a Champions League rating to settle towards Thomas Tuchel, when the newly-appointed Bayern Munich boss visits the Etihad in Tuesday’s quarter-final, first leg. Tuchel emerged victorious as Chelsea supervisor in Metropolis’s first, and thus far solely, run to the Champions League closing in 2021. That was additionally the closest Guardiola has are available 10 tries throughout spells at Barcelona, Bayern and Metropolis to land his third European Cup as a coach. Chelsea’s 1-0 win in entrance of largely empty Estadio do Dragao in Porto as a consequence of coronavirus restrictions two years in the past was a case of the apprentice outshining the grasp.
As a younger coach Tuchel studied and admired Guardiola’s dominant Barcelona facet that gained 14 trophies in 4 years from 2008 to 2012, together with two Champions League titles.
Their paths then crossed throughout Guardiola’s three years in cost at Bayern, whereas Tuchel was coach of Mainz after which Borussia Dortmund.
Two soccer obsessives, the pair even talked lengthy into the evening at a Munich bar in 2014, utilizing glasses and salt and pepper shakers to imitate formations.
“I used to be such an enormous admirer of Pep when he was a participant after which when he turned a coach it was like studying on the job for me,” stated Tuchel previous to the 2021 Champions League closing.
“I used to be an academy coach after which within the Bundesliga with Mainz, however I do not suppose I missed a recreation (of Guardiola’s Barcelona) as a result of there was a lot to study.”
The respect is mutual. Guardiola described Tuchel final season as “one of many few managers I study from to develop (into) a greater supervisor myself.”
– Champions League pedigree –
Guardiola has tended to have the higher hand in clashes between the 2.
Three Chelsea wins within the area of six weeks in direction of the tip of the 2020/21 season are Tuchel’s solely victories in 10 conferences between the 2 to Guardiola’s six.
However he gained an important one and his Champions League pedigree performed a big half in Bayern’s swoop to safe his providers and sack Julian Nagelsmann in a shock transfer final month.
Tuchel additionally took Paris Saint-Germain to their maiden closing in Europe’s premier membership competitors in 2020 and took eventual winners Actual Madrid to extra-time within the quarter-finals final yr regardless of Chelsea being thrust into disaster by sanctions imposed on then proprietor Roman Abramovich.
The 49-year-old now has the problem of succeeding the place Guardiola failed in main Bayern again to Champions League glory.
However the weight of expectation falls rather more closely on the Metropolis boss.
In his seventh season in Manchester, Guardiola is within the working for his fifth Premier League title.
But the failure to recover from the road in Europe stays a blot on his copybook.
“It does not imply I agree with that however completely we will likely be judged by