The Champions League final is just a day away and both Manchester City and Chelsea’s preparations are in full swing for the all-important game.
Chelsea have pedigree in this competition, having won the coveted European trophy in 2012 against Bayern Munich.
Despite the squad possessing a completely new look now, the players won’t forget what the individuals before them managed to achieve.
Manchester City, however, are novices when it comes to Champions League final. Saturday will be the club’s first ever appearance in one, and Pep Guardiola and his team seem more than ready.
The Champions League has always eluded the Manchester club, but tomorrow marks a key chapter in their story to overturn this verdict.
Speaking to UEFA.com ahead of the game tomorrow, City forward Ferran Torres sat down to talk all thing’s Chelsea, Pep, and his mindset ahead of the Champions League final.
The Spaniard joined the club in the summer, arriving from Valencia for just over £20million, a steal of a deal for a player with a market value of £45million.
When asked about Chelsea, however, Torres didn’t hold back about the difficulties of playing against the London club, with him describing their style of play as ‘a pain in the neck’…
“They’re a pain in the neck, in a good way, since they’re always chasing the ball. They run a lot and they want the ball. They don’t just go for counterattacks, they also want to take the ball off you, which deserves some credit.” – Ferran Torres speaking to UEFA.com
As we saw during the two clubs’ last game against one another, this was very evident from the get-go despite City taking the lead.
Individuals such as N’Golo Kante are great runners and often cover great lengths of the pitch when trying to win back possession.
This is a tactic that Thomas Tuchel has utilised massively since arriving at Stamford Bridge, and it appears to be working.
Torres later went on to counter his points, in light of his praise over Chelsea, stating that he believes City are one of the best teams in the world, and that the Champions League trophy would be ‘the icing on the cake’ to a successful season, with Betway also making them favourites to win it…
“We’re one of the best teams in the world, [so] we have to try and win it all. We’ve won the Premier [League], which is a very hard task – you have to work hard throughout the whole season to achieve it. But a Champions League final [win] would be like the icing on the cake. City have never won one, which is an extra motivation, and we’re going to work hard in this final sprint. And we’re going into it feeling really excited, because above everything else it’s about enjoying it.” – Ferran Torres speaking to UEFA.com
