Chelsea won the final 1–0 for their second UEFA Champions League title.
Chelsea claimed their second UEFA Champions League title at the expense of Manchester City, Kai Havertz’s first-half goal settling the all-English final in Porto.
Chelsea lifted their second UEFA Champions League trophy after beating Manchester City 1-0 at the Estadio do Dragao in Porto. Chelsea’s mega signing Kai Havertz came up big on the biggest night of the Blues this season as he was the lone goal scorer in the match.
How they lined up
Man. City: Ederson; Walker, Stones, Dias, Zinchenko; Bernardo Silva (Fernandinho 64), Gündoğan, Foden; Mahrez, De Bruyne (Jesus 60), Sterling (Agüero 77), Foden.
Chelsea: Mendy; James, Azpilicueta, Thiago Silva (Christensen 39), Rüdiger, Chilwell; Kanté, Jorginho; Mount (Kovačić 80), Havertz; Werner (Pulišić 66).
Despite winning three of the last four Premier League titles for City, Spaniard Guardiola failed to deliver the coveted European trophy he last won with Barcelona in 2011.
For Chelsea’s German manager Thomas Tuchel the triumph comes after his Paris St Germain side suffered defeat in last season’s final against Bayern Munich and just four months after he took over from Frank Lampard at the west London club.
In a lot of ways, Chelsea and Manchester City are two sides of the same coin. They are the vanguard of the money that has swept into soccer over the last 20 years, brought by hedge funds and vulture capitalists and oligarchs and nation states. They are, depending on one’s perspective, either the great insurgents or the nouveaux riches.
But they are, at the same time, fundamentally different. The Chelsea of Roman Abramovich has always embraced chaos. It has now won the Champions League twice, both times in seasons in which it changed its manager at the slightest hint of disappointment, in seasons when its ultimate triumph made little sense.
Tuchel has faced City three times in six weeks and won every time. Chelsea’s Russian owner Roman Abramovich, watching from the stands, must have had a wry smile to himself as once again his ruthless approach to managerial changes has paid off.
