Atlético Madrid v Chelsea: Champions League, very last-sixteen initial leg – live! | Football

Chelsea have played pretty very well so significantly, with Alonso putting in a handful of fantastic crosses from the left, Hudson-Odoi and Mount combining very well on the right with no pretty developing the killer ball, and the defence, early Mendy-related scare apart, wanting fairly sturdy.

“Surely Chelsea could have worn their initial kit, there’s not a great deal of a clash,” sniffs Julian Menz. “I get the kit-advertising facet, but that strip is so dreadful no-just one is heading to obtain it in any case. My expensive departed dad experienced pyjamas like that.”

forty five+2 minutes: 50 percent of the time has been played, and none of the goals have been scored.

forty five+one minutes: Just the just one minute of stoppage time is to be played at the finish of the initial 50 percent.

forty five minutes: Wonderful do the job by Mount and Hudson-Odoi on the right, but Mount takes just one contact too a lot of ahead of crossing, and hits a defender.

forty three minutes: Giroud just can’t bring down a long move into the Atletico penalty space, and insists a defender managed the ball in stopping him. The VAR spends .8 seconds looking at replays ahead of dismissing his enchantment. In the meantime in tonight’s other match, it is now -three.

41 minutes: Another decent crack from Chelsea, which ends with Alonso lifting a ball from the left to Mount, broad of aim on the right, whose tried cushion-volleyed cross back in is all completely wrong. Objective kick.

39 minutes: Werner spins into place guiding Savic and from very well broad of aim and an acute angle lashes a shot goalwards, but it is straight at Oblak’s head and he receives his palms up in time to save his facial area a little bit of discomfort.

37 minutes: Jorginho tries to elevate the ball in excess of Atletico’s defence to Hudson-Odoi, but it is justoverlong. He wants to hold participating in the exact exact same move (very well, it’s possible just a portion much less sturdy), for the reason that there is guarantee there.

34 minutes: Koke receives a little bit of cure right after getting an arm to the side of the head from Alonso as both equally contend for a higher ball.

32 minutes: In the meantime in tonight’s other match, the younger English/German (delete as ideal) ace Jamal Musiala has created it Lazio -2 Bayern Munich.

26 minutes: A pleasant shift from Chelsea sees Kovacic give the ball to Alonso, in place on the left, and his cross is satisfied by a diving Giroud, whose header flies straight into a defender.

25 minutes: Alonso’s low twenty-yarder is saved by Oblak. It is the night’s initial shot on concentrate on, but the keeper is not critically troubled.

23 minutes: Lemar takes a weak contact in his possess 50 percent and nearly gives the ball absent to Mount, but he manages to run into the Chelsea player and win a absolutely free-kick as an alternative.

twenty minutes: Werner wins a corner, and Chelsea try out a pre-labored program that seems to be fantastic until eventually Jorginho overhits his move to Mount.

17 minutes: Werner plays a just one-two with Giroud and tumbles in the penalty space, but the referee doesn’t think it is a penalty. Enjoy carries on though VAR takes a search.

15 minutes: Related chance for Chelsea! Hudson-Odoi and Mount mix on the right, and the latter’s low cross zips earlier Werner in advance of the close to post and all the way throughout aim!

14 minutes: Opportunity for Atletico! Suarez receives in down the right, cuts in, bisects the 6-garden box with a low centre, and it operates just too significantly in advance of Lemar with the aim gaping, and he studs it broad!

12 minutes: Hudson-Odoi on the right has been the most available alternative when Chelsea have attacked, with passes available to him in excess of and further than the backtracking Lemar, but he has but to do nearly anything with the scrap of attacking place he’s been afforded.

10 minutes: They also have four players in the box, and a few offering closer help, when Lemar has the ball on the right, so are in essence organizing on most players remaining both equally in the defence and in the attack.

6 minutes: Atletico are participating in with a flat back 6 when Chelsea have the ball, with Lemar and Correa dropping back to help out in essence as whole-backs.

three minutes: Virtually a giveaway aim for Atletico! Chelsea try out to engage in the ball close to in defence, but it is passed a little closely to Mendy, whose initial contact is appalling and sends it rolling toward Saul Niguez for a tap-in! He’s saved for the reason that his initial contact is so terrible that Saul just can’t manage it, and as an alternative is pressured broad.

2 minutes: A pretty early booking for Mason Mount, who leans into Joao Felix within the centre circle, bringing him down. He will for that reason miss out on the second leg (Kovacic and Jorginho are also a booking absent from a suspension).

one min: Peeeeeeep! Chelsea, the “visitors”, get the match underneath way.

They are now savoring the Champions League anthem, as indeed are we all (except you’re adhering to the match only on the website, in which scenario the use of your creativity is essential).

The players are accumulating in the lobby space, savoring the times ahead of they arrive out to appreciate the times ahead of kick-off.

Thomas Tuchel on the early times of his time at Chelsea: “It’s like an orchestra, where by you learn a new music and it becomes a routine to engage in it, but on the way there is a lack of timing and a little bit a lack of rhythm.”

Though if you have however acquired a minute you could look at out these fantastic if fully irrelevant to the subject at hand images of nineteen sixties Edinburgh:

Ultimately, Sid Lowe’s job interview with Filipe Luis, who played for both equally of tonight’s groups, albeit instead additional for just one than the other:

Additional pre-match reading, Jacob Steinberg now on Thomas Tuchel’s spluttering strikers:

Here’s Josué Seixas on Felipe, who starts his 20th match of the period this evening:

The workforce sheets have been submitted, and the names on them were these:

Atletico Madrid: Oblak, Savic, Felipe, Hermoso, Llorente, Koke, Lemar, Saul, Correa, Joao Felix, Suarez. Subs: Grbic, Kondogbia, Torreira, Renan Lodi, Dembele, Vitolo, Camello, Garcia, Sanchez, San Roman.
Chelsea: Mendy, Azpilicueta, Christensen, Rudiger, Hudson-Odoi, Jorginho, Kovacic, Alonso, Mount, Werner, Giroud. Subs: Arrizabalaga, Kante, Abraham, Pulisic, Caballero, Zouma, Chilwell, Ziyech, Gilmour, James, Havertz, Emerson Palmieri.
Referee: Felix Brych.

If you’re only as fantastic as your very last match Chelsea are in luck, for the reason that Atletico dropped 2- to Levante at the weekend. In each and every other way, however, they’re in for a pretty tricky night time. “It’s crystal clear what you get when you engage in Atlético: fighting, knowledge and a workforce with a sturdy mentality,” says Tommy Tuchel. Sure, the game’s relocation to Bucharest is pretty useful, but even so this is not an uncomplicated assignment – for either workforce. “Take my term for it: it is not uncomplicated to engage in for Cholo,” Filipe Luis said of Diego Simeone to Sid Lowe this 7 days. “He has zero sentimentality. None. He decides what he has to decide to win.” As for Simeone, he identified as Tuchel a “great mentor who constantly tends to make his groups engage in very well, anywhere he goes”, and added that he “comes to a club that is pretty sturdy economically”, which could either be a bland assertion of point or a little bit of a dig at the supply of their prosperity and subsequent success dependent on how you search at it, but I’m heading with the latter.

Atletico have a handful of injuries-enforced absentees, which include Jose Gimenez and Yannick Carrasco, though Chelsea have left Thiago Silva at household, but any match with Luis Suarez, Joao Felix, Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech on its checklist of probably members is a match I want to be looking at.

Ahead of we get the chance to do that, however, here’s a initial instalment of pre-match reading, with additional to arrive: