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Chelsea’s long road back to Champions League final, nine years removed

By Akshat Mehrish

Chelsea's English midfielder Mason Mount leaves the pitch after being substituted off during the UEFA Champions League second leg semi-final football match between Chelsea and Real Madrid at Stamford Bridge in London on May 5, 2021. - Chelsea won the match 2-0. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP) (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images)
Chelsea's English midfielder Mason Mount leaves the pitch after being substituted off during the UEFA Champions League second leg semi-final football match between Chelsea and Real Madrid at Stamford Bridge in London on May 5, 2021. - Chelsea won the match 2-0. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP) (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images) /
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Chelsea’s English midfielder Mason Mount leaves the pitch after being substituted off during the UEFA Champions League second leg semi-final football match between Chelsea and Real Madrid at Stamford Bridge in London on May 5, 2021. – Chelsea won the match 2-0. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP) (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images)
Chelsea’s English midfielder Mason Mount leaves the pitch after being substituted off during the UEFA Champions League second leg semi-final football match between Chelsea and Real Madrid at Stamford Bridge in London on May 5, 2021. – Chelsea won the match 2-0. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP) (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images) /

Hope for the future

Chelsea’s long journey back to the Champions League final will culminate with Thomas Tuchel in the dugout, but a key development took place almost two years ago when the Blues received a transfer ban. It enabled the club to broaden its approach and appoint Frank Lampard as the head coach. A Champions League winner in 2012 with Chelsea, one of the Englishman’s first actions was to integrate the academy and the youth team.

What Chelsea had ignored for years became its biggest strength. The likes of Mason Mount, Reece James, Tammy Abraham and Callum Hudson-Odoi were thrust into the first team, providing the club’s hierarchy with the young core it had been searching for over the last decade. Meanwhile, some exciting transfer business in the previous summer window strengthened that core, creating the perfect mix of youth and experience.

Lampard did not survive the Chelsea experience to see out the project. However, the club legend can take solace in the fact that it was his brave decisions a-year-and-a-half ago that started the team on the path which culminated in it reaching a UCL final. Of course, Tuchel’s arrival at Stamford Bridge was another key factor in that. The German’s tactical switch to compensate for the squad’s weaknesses has turned the Blues into genuine trophy contenders again. Chelsea can win two trophies this month, which seemed unlikely earlier in the season.

Nevertheless, it is the hope for the future that fuels even further excitement. When Chelsea won the Champions League in 2012, it did so with a team of legendary players who were on their last legs. Nine years on from that win, as the Blues reach the final again, the core of the team is young. The likes of Mount, James, Christian Pulisic and Kai Havertz have some way left to go before they can equal the achievements set by their predecessors, which extend beyond just trophies. However, remarkably, they are 90 minutes away from matching their greatest competitive feat.

Chelsea: The value of having been there before in the Champions League. dark. Next

A win in the final won’t mean that Chelsea’s young stars surpass the golden generation, just like a loss won’t be the end of the road for them. However, the signs early on about what this set of players can achieve are promising.

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