Hansi Flick backs Thomas Tuchel, Chelsea to have strong showing in the Champions League

Ever since Thomas Tuchel has taken charge of Chelsea in the Premier League, they’ve yet to lose a match from a total of six outings across all competitions. They’ve accumulated a record of five wins and one draw including progression to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup since he was announced as manager, replacing Frank Lampard. They face a massive test in the Champions League in the form of Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid, who have been firing on all cylinders in La Liga this season.

Per a new report from the Daily Mail, Hansi Flick is confident that Tuchel and Chelsea will have a strong showing in the Champions League, despite facing one of the most difficult opponents the competition could possibly offer right now. “Chelsea have massive potential both in terms of quality and quantity. It’s a young team with a lot of talent. They can go far in the Champions League this season. Thomas [Tuchel] has gained experience at PSG that will benefit him at Chelsea. He’s ready for this challenge,” Flick explained.

Of course, Flick’s Bayern got the best of Lampard’s Chelsea in the round of 16 in the Champions League last season, beating them by a total of 7-1 on aggregate, albeit the two legs were separated by quite some time because of the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, Chelsea has bolstered their squad with Timo Werner from RB Leipzig and Kai Havertz from Bayer Leverkusen. It’s taken the former Bundesliga pair some time to find their feet in the Premier League, but Havertz was unfortunately one of several players across Europe’s that had trouble recovering from the coronavirus.

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images

Looking ahead to the clash against Atletico, Tuchel said they’ll be looking to get a positive result against Southampton in the league over the weekend to take the positive momentum to Madrid next week. “They [Atletico] are one of the toughest teams in Spain and are still a challenge. It is a two-match elimination as you know well. We will focus on Southampton and the best way to arrive in the Champions League with a good performance. ‘Hopefully another win, we will see on Monday who we can count on and who is ready to play. ‘We are confident enough to say we play these two games [against Atletico] to get to the next round, but it will be super hard,” he said.