Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel spoke about the 1-0 defeat to Juventus, explained former Inter striker Romelu Lukaku was the ‘physical striker’ the Blues were looking for and stressed Jorginho ‘deserves to win the Ballon d’Or’.
Tuchel spoke at the Sports Festival in Trento and the German and shared his thoughts on several topics.
He praised Jorginho and said the Brazilian-born Italy international ‘deserves to win’ the Ballon d’Or 2021 and explained why the Blues signed Lukaku from Inter.
He then went on to talk about the 1-0 defeat to Juventus in the Champions League and hailed Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta.
“Jorginho deserves to win the Ballon d’Or,” Tuchel said. “He’s a very intelligent player and it’s a pleasure to be his coach.
“He has a great vision of football. For me, individual prizes don’t have great significance, it’s impossible to make a real comparison between several players of different roles.
“I would like one of my players to win it because I would know what the effect would be. Then Jorginho is a great person and an excellent player, but in general it’s not the most important thing.”
Lukaku moved back to Chelsea after winning the Scudetto with Inter and Tuchel said he was the ‘physical striker’ that the Blues were looking for.
“I’m sorry for the Inter fans, but like everyone, we try to improve our formation,” Tuchel added. “We were looking for a very physical striker, a point of reference, a player with a personality who could lift the pressure off the shoulders of the younger players and give us the chance to play faster football.
“Returning to England, where he played as a young man, was important for him. I knew he was an extraordinary person.”
Chelsea lost 1-0 to Juventus in the match at the Allianz Stadium on September 29, and the German said the Londoners made ‘three fundamental mistakes’ against the Bianconeri.
“I imagined we would dominate,” Tuchel revealed. “Like against Atletico a year before. We made three fundamental mistakes, we made Juventus believe in themselves.
“It’s not that they didn’t deserve the victory, just that we didn’t make any mistakes against Atletico, we were patient there.
“It was difficult to analyse that match, obviously accepting Juventus’ performance and [Max] Allegri’s management.”
The 48-year-old continued to praise Gian Piero Gasperini’s ‘crazy and bizarre’ Atalanta, one of the teams he faced in Europe with Paris Saint-Germain.
“I played against Atalanta when I was at PSG,” he said. “When we analysed the team, we fell in love with them, they are bizarre and crazy.
“They played in a way we didn’t think they could do, they scored a lot of goals. I was wondering if it was really an Italian team.
“These teams make me get up early in the morning to start working again.”
‘“They played in a way we didn’t think they could do, they scored a lot of goals. I was wondering if it was really an Italian team’.
That’s such a tired cliche by now. C’mon Tuchel – you can do better than that. It’s as dull and predictable as describing German teams being ‘panzer’ or ‘machines’.
Serie A is bottom in ranking in terms of percentage of shots on target, yet third in terms of goals per game which would suggest that Italian defences are conceding far more chances than they ever did. Serie A outscores la Lega and the PL – goals per game.
It is indeed so predictable and boring, everyone is perpetually surprised that Italy and Italian sides aren’t all about catenaccio anymore. Then when they next see an Italian side, they get surprised once again. I guess the image is hard to shake off, and most people in the UK don’t watch Italian football, so all they have is old memories or stereotypes.