The embarrassing truth for Chelsea and Thomas Tuchel is that it was Karim Benzema, a 34-year-old who improved somewhat with age, who turned that draw in the Champions League quarter-finals perhaps irrevocably in favor of Real Madrid in Wednesday’s 3-1 win. The French international’s amazing hat-trick included two superb heads, while the third hit was a reward for the kind of pressure that some believe is beyond an advanced player. Choose Benzema’s remarkable stats: 42 goals in his last 42 games, 13 in his last seven, 10 in his last four, his fourth hat-trick in the Champions League and his record of 11 goals a season is the highest of any Frenchman in the competition. – ESPN FC Stream Daily on ESPN + (US only) – Don’t have ESPN? Get instant access “Every day is better, like wine,” said Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti, who arrived in London just hours before the start after testing negative for COVID-19. Benzema is the complete striker that Chelsea believed he was buying from Romelu Lukaku. His first head combined laser precision with enough power to convert Vinicius Junior’s cross in the 21st minute. The second was arguably better, meeting the accurate performance of Luka Modric with his weight on the wrong foot, but somehow guided a great effort behind Chelsea goalkeeper Edward Medy. Kay Havers responded with a header, converting Giorgino’s superb ball into the 40th minute, but, less than a minute after the second half, Benzema led Medy in the wrong, hitting Antonio Rudiger under the pass. Benzema beat Chelsea’s central defender in Tacklin and sent the loose ball into an empty net. Lukaku watched all this from the bench, he was omitted once again as a result of the fact that Chelsea has produced enough evidence in recent weeks that it is currently stronger without the man who was acquired to do it. He entered the battle shortly after the time for the anonymous Christian Pulisic and within five minutes, the opposition with Benzema was intense to the point of shame. Karim Benzema has 82 goals in the Champions League, ranking fourth on the list of all-time top scorers. Getty Cesar Azpilicueta took a left-footed cross to find Lukaku unmarked seven yards out. His head was unconvinced and he escaped safely from the target. “It was very important,” Tuhel said of Miss Lukaku. “There are no more away goals, so if we only have one goal deficit or a draw, then you see the momentum come back when we score. We could even equalize. There were a lot of places and opportunities. But the individual. the level of our standards “. The home side cheered Lukaku’s attempt to warm up to his team mate, and was sent off. They are used to it now. There was an even worse attempt later, desperately off target. In 26 minutes, he managed four touches, though one of them to set up Hakim Ziyech for an attempt that just threw out. 2 About Lukaku signed at great expense – 115 million euros from Internacional – for one clear reason: to add toughness to a team that usually turned down too many opportunities. In Tuhel’s first 50 games as leader, Chelsea kept 31 clean sheets, higher than any other team in Europe’s top five leagues. It was this efficiency that formed the basis of an incredible triumph in the Champions League last season, but this time, given the dual mission of retaining the European crown and pursuing the Premier League title, it was to align that resilience with a greater aggressive threat. Loukakou was signed as the only solution, but the problem remains. Haverts has taken the lead in Chelsea’s attack, sometimes with a strike partner in the 3-5-2 system or alone in Tuhel’s preferred 3-4-2-1, but even in six wins before international break, admirable as given the wider uncertainty about the ownership and day-to-day running of the club, they often did not have the offensive power one would reasonably expect from them. Tuhel occasionally moved to a quartet seeking a solution and seemed to regret his squad here, withdrawing N’Golo Kante and Andreas Christensen for Mateo Kovacic and Ziyech at halftime in a series of changes to try to rectify. a game that escapes them. Christensen was out of rhythm from the beginning, anxious about the rhythm and sharpness of Vinicius’s movement. Tuchel described the creation of this match with the composition of 3-5-2 as “my mistake” and even took the unusual step of rejecting an easy opportunity to talk about the prospect of a revival of the second match. Just asked if the draw was still alive, Tuhel said: “No, not right now. No. We have to find our level back. I do not know where he is from the international break. The first half is a repeat of the second half. against Brentford [a 4-1 home defeat] in the quarterfinals against Real Madrid. So far from our level in everything the game requires, we can not expect a result from this kind of performance. “If we continue to play like this, we will lose at Southampton and then we will be beaten at the Bernabeu.” This, of course, could never be considered the fault of Lukaku alone. He’s just the face of a problem that Tuchel has had for a long time, a problem that was revealed here by Real’s great first-half performance and many individual errors, no more damaging than Mendy’s mistake within 45 seconds of restarting . And in Lukaku’s defense, none of Tuhel’s changes worked particularly well. Ruben Loftus-Chick, who replaced Zorginio at the same time as Lukaku was introduced, was strange, given the importance of the Italian for the team. Reese James was understandably rusty only in his second start of December due to injury and that the collective weakness on the right side of Chelsea was a vulnerability they could not cover. In fact, the backs are vital to Tuchel’s approach and with James not at his best and Azpilicueta unable to pose the same threat as Ben Chilwell, this is undoubtedly a contributing factor to any explanation. because the Blues had a hard time. As the Real Madrid midfield trio of Tony Cross and Casimiro began to tire, Chelsea’s persistence created many promising positions – Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, baited out of his return to Stamford by Stamford Azpilicueta – but otherwise There was a lack of quality in front of the finish that Tuchel will recognize very well. Something must change otherwise their ambitions in the Champions League will be the next victim.
