Chelsea again played unscorable – Sport – Kommersant

Two more matches took place at the start of the 1/8 finals of the Champions League. In the central confrontation of the evening, Borussia defeated Chelsea 1-0 in Dortmund, however, in this pair, the entire struggle for a ticket to the quarterfinals is ahead. But Benfica, having defeated Brugge on the road – 2: 0, has already practically guaranteed itself access to the next round.

Before the start of the play-offs of the Champions League, Chelsea, of course, asked everyone a riddle. While the club’s management left and right was overflowing with money in the winter transfer window, having spent well over €300 million on the next portion of newcomers, the team itself fell into some kind of stupor and completely stopped winning. Well, the performance of the Londoners on the football field turned out to be completely opposite to their financial injections, so that each goal was worth its weight in gold for them, because in the previous 12 matches they scored only six goals. Even the head coach of Borussia Edin Terzic admitted that it was difficult for him to analyze the current state of the opponent who started the restructuring and at least just understand what tactical scheme he would choose. Everything is too mixed up in the former house of Roman Abramovich, which is now managed by American investor Todd Beuly.

Having not understood the new schemes of his colleague Graham Potter, Terzic promised that in any case his team would play according to their own capabilities. And Borussia, unlike Chelsea, has recently gained a decent pace, scoring six victories in a row. Is that the injury of the rising star, 18-year-old Yussouf Mukoko could darken the Dortmund mood a little. But after a long break associated with treatment for cancer, Sebastien Allais returned, who entered the top three scorers of the last Champions League when he was still playing for Ajax.

At home, with the support of about 80 thousand fans, Borussia tried to immediately strangle Chelsea, however, they themselves ran into active pressure from the guests, who successfully acted in the selection and ran out into prickly counterattacks. In such a game, the English club looked more interesting and even scored from the standard, when Thiago Silva resorted to an old trick and with a flick of the wrist sent the ball into the net. However, the referees brought the Chelsea captain to clean water without the help of VAR, awarding him a yellow card.

Dortmund also continued to look for approaches to the goal, and Julian Brandt unexpectedly got to them by the shortest route, running almost in a straight line from the center line to the goalkeeper’s area. That’s just poked around and couldn’t hit. Alle also hit from an acute angle and missed the target. But Chelsea responded much sharper, and Juan Felix ruined two iron chances in a row. First, the Portuguese missed the “nine”, which he aimed after a pass from the flank from Hakim Ziyech, and then he managed to hit the crossbar when he beat defender Marius Wolf one-on-one and jumped out on goalkeeper Gregor Kobel. It is difficult to say what prevented Felix from scoring, nevertheless, Chelsea gave out a very good first half, showing that they were able to deal with Borussia at their stadium.

After the break, the Londoners still looked better. Defender Reece James boldly joined the attack, earned a dangerous free kick and shot himself into the wall, but still at a height accessible to Kobel. Soon the hosts also delivered the first shot on target, when the partners brought Brandt to a convenient position. Finally, the goalkeeper of the blue Kepa Arrizabalaga reminded of himself, having made something like a save. However, at the gates of Kobel it was still somehow more disturbing. The same James treacherously beat with a rebound from the lawn, and the Swiss hardly moved the ball to the corner. Yes, and his serve led to a scoring situation, but Dortmund fought back and caught Chelsea on the fact that all of its defenders concentrated in the area of ​​\u200b\u200ba foreign penalty area. Nimble Karim Adeyemi ran away from his half of the field, calmly walked away from midfielder Enzo Fernandez, who remained on safety net, and casually circled Kepa. So, in the 63rd minute, Borussia took the lead 1-0.

The guests, of course, did not accept such a development of events, and again it was very hot at the gates of Kobel. And when the goalkeeper dragged a powerful shot at close range Kalidou Koulibaly, the ball, slowly rolling into the net, was taken out of the line by the defensive midfielder Emre Can. I really wanted to rehabilitate myself in the ending of Fernandez. But the most expensive acquisition in the history of English football, and Chelsea recently paid Benfica €121 million for it, did not save their new team from defeat. At the end of the meeting, the Argentine tried to get into the “nine”, but Kobel coped with this test. Although in this confrontation, nothing is clear yet. Despite all the Londoners’ internal problems, it’s too early to write them off in the Champions League.

Benfica, without Fernandez, made a weighty bid to reach the quarterfinals, beating Brugge 2-0 away. It seems that the fairy tale of the Belgian club, which for the first time in its history made it to the play-offs of the Champions League, has come to an end. Yes, and its author Carl Hoofkens at the end of last year has already lost the post of head coach to Scott Parker, in which, however, the black and blue won only one victory. It is expected that in the match with the current leader of the championship of Portugal, Brugge failed to succeed. On the debut of the second half, Goncalo Ramos forced a foul in the penalty area, while Juan Mario converted a penalty. In principle, the hosts could have lost with a minimum score, if in the 88th minute they had not brought themselves a second goal, which David Neres scored, going out face to face with the goalkeeper.

Alexander Ilyin