Man City
20:00pm
Chelsea
Venue: Estádio do Dragão
Champions League final: Manchester City v Chelsea
Date: Saturday, 29 May. Kick-off: 20:00 BST. Venue: Estadio do Dragao, Porto. It’s an all-English Champions League final – but will it be Manchester City or Chelsea who will be crowned champions of Europe on Saturday?
Premier League champions City are looking to win the prestigious competition for the first time.
Chelsea, European champions in 2012, have beaten Pep Guardiola’s side twice in the league and FA Cup in 2020-21.
Up to 16,500 people will be allowed inside Porto’s Estadio do Dragao ground to watch.
With Pep looking to win the champions league for the third time, he said “I know exactly the way we want to play, with who we’re going to play and I’m not going to bother them much,”
“It’s an incredible experience to be here. I know exactly what I’m going to tell them. The guys who are anxious and nervous, I will tell them that’s normal. “I’m pretty sure we have to suffer to win the final. It’s nice to say enjoy it but sometimes it’s not possible. You have to be resilient and adjust.” Guardiola said.
City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne said: “If you win, you’re a hero. If you lose, you’re almost a failure. Coming to this stage is incredibly well done by the team but if you don’t win it’s something you don’t want to experience.
On the other hand ahead of the game, Chelsea boss Tuchel had this to say “I have full trust that everybody wants it,” said Tuchel. “It is about hunger and always on the highest level in sport it comes down to how bad do you want it? I have felt us very concentrated, focused and disciplined in the build-up this week.
“It’s always tough to play against City, Bayern or Barcelona when Pep is on the sidelines. He creates huge belief and success and has a huge winning mentality.”Maybe in the moment they are the strongest team in Europe, in the world, and they have built a huge gap between us in the league but we closed the gap for 90 minutes in Wembley and closed the gap again in Manchester.”
The video assistant referee (VAR) system will be used, while City have been designated the ‘home’ team, which means they will play in their traditional sky blue and white colours.
This year’s final will air in over 200 countries around the world, with the opening ceremony taking place about 10 minutes before the biggest game in European club football kicks off.
The final was set to be staged at Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Turkey but was switched earlier this month to the Portuguese city of Porto because of coronavirus restrictions.
The Estadio do Dragao hosted the 2019 Nations League final and was built for Euro 2004.
If City beat Chelsea, they will become the sixth different English club to be crowned champions of Europe after Liverpool, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea and Aston Villa.
City are the ninth different English club to reach the final after Liverpool, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Leeds United, Arsenal and Tottenham.
The last English team to win their first final was Aston Villa in 1982 against Bayern Munich.
It is 51 years since Manchester City last played in a major European final – beating Gornik Zabrze 2-1 in the 1970 Cup Winners’ Cup final.
In European competition, Chelsea and Manchester City’s only previous meeting came in the 1970-71 Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final – Chelsea won both legs 1-0 to progress to the final, where they beat Real Madrid after a replay.
If he starts, City’s Phil Foden, who turned 21 on Friday, will become the third-youngest Englishman to start in a Champions League final, after Owen Hargreaves in 2001 for Bayern Munich (20 years 123 days) and Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold in both 2018 (19 years 231 days) and 2019 (20 years 237 days).
Since featuring in a 2-1 defeat by Lyon in September 2018, City’s Bernardo Silva is unbeaten in his past 26 Champions League matches (W23 D3) – the longest unbeaten run in the history of the competition.
Chelsea defender Thiago Silva featured in last season’s Champions League final for Paris St-Germain and could become the fifth player to play in the final in consecutive seasons with different teams, after Marcel Desailly (1993 Marseille, 1994 Milan), Paulo Sousa (1996 Juventus, 1997 Borussia Dortmund), Samuel Eto’o (2009 Barcelona, 2010 Inter Milan) and Alvaro Morata (2014 Real Madrid, 2015 Juventus).
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