Breaking down Chelsea’s potential UCL quarterfinal opponents

3. Bayern Munich

Pros: Truth be told there really aren’t many pros to drawing Bayern Munich. If there was a “nightmare scenario” for Chelsea (or honestly, any team remaining) it’d be Bayern.

About the closest one can get to a pro is that this Bayern team isn’t the same as the Bayern team of last season, which is like saying the best team in the world one year is maybe not quite the best team in the world the next. It’s a small difference that probably doesn’t matter.

If Chelsea does draw Bayern, the best that can be hoped for is Thomas Tuchel and Chelsea both have chips on their shoulders to get one over the Bavarians. Tuchel has often been talked about for the Bayern job but was passed over nearly every time, not to mention his Dortmund connections. At the same time, Chelsea got beat like a drum by the German side either side of the Covid break last year. If that fuels the Blues’ fire enough to get through to the semifinals, so be it.

Cons: Bayern is probably still the best team in the world right now, especially since they have settled down in the Bundesliga this year and other teams in form have fallen off. The regularly go behind in matches seemingly just to prove they can come back by blasting the opponent away.

They have, top to bottom, the most well built squad in the world and who the manager is rarely matters. Hans-Dieter Flick could leave for Germany at the end of the season, Bayern could hire a u8s coach, and they’d probably still be a force to be reckoned with. Make no mistake, Bayern is the worst case scenario.

4. Borussia Dortmund

Pros: Dortmund has not had a good season by any stretch of the imagination. They can count themselves lucky that they are in a league as crazy as the Bundesliga that, despite their poor ability, still sees them in a European spot.

Dortmund currently has an interim manager who has had pretty much no “new manager bounce” to speak of. Dortmund is as they were and that would be a concern for the German side. Perhaps the closest Premier League equivalent would be Everton who, despite having a lot of good players, never quite puts it all together in a threatening way. Dortmund may not be the weakest team left in the competition, but they are certainly the second weakest.

Cons: Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho, Julian Brandt, Marco Reus, Thorgan Hazard, and (sometimes) Giovanni Reyna. Dortmund may be an out of form side but they have a ton of great and amazing depth on attack that they rely on to get them through games. Chief among those is Haaland who may be Europe’s most in form striker right now. Chelsea’s defense has been amazing under Thomas Tuchel thus far but that would be put to the test by almost any combination of Dortmund’s attack.

It’s also hard to dismiss the sheer grit Dortmund can show. Even with their form being poor they never truly give up. It obviously helps when you know you can get Haaland the ball and watch him score a crazy goal but even without him Dortmund had a certain get back up mentality. Dortmund has the potential to be a real trap game for whoever draws them.