Antonio Rudiger will start Chelsea’s Champions League quarter-final against Porto on Wednesday night, even though Thomas Tuchel described his training-ground bust-up with Kepa Arrizabalaga as a “serious situation” that he could not overlook.
Tuchel ordered the German defender back to the dressing room on Sunday after he became involved in a shoving match with the goalkeeper during a practice match.
But Tuchel said he decided not to punish Rudiger, who has been a regular for him, because of the swift and “amazing” way he acted to make amends to ensure the incident is in the past.
“It was serious,” said the Chelsea manager. “Sometimes you have little situations when you can look away. This was not the case. We needed to interfere but the way the guys handled the situation was impressive and showed a lot of character. Toni sorted it out directly which was absolutely necessary. It was a brave and direct thing to do.
“Clearly there are rules and lines we do not want to overstep. Things got too heated up and the reaction was not okay but the reaction to it and how the guys, especially Toni and Kepa, handled it was amazing. They cleared the air immediately. They solved it straight after training in a very honest and direct and humble way. That showed me they have a good character. There was nothing left the day after. We spoke about the issue and it was solved. It did not stay with us.”
Tuchel is unhappy that news of their altercation and his post-match debrief was leaked but has vowed not to distract himself by searching for the mole, feeling it could be counter-productive.
“That it gets out? I get used to it in modern times,” he said. “The information I give you is not the full details because I strongly believe the details need to stay in Cobham and in the dressing room. Meetings have to be confidential. But it is not such a big deal that I start digging for who is the leak and who did this. You can get totally lost in this and I don’t want to lose my focus. I won’t lose my trust in the group.”
Chelsea lost their unbeaten record under Tuchel as, after only conceding two goals in his first 14 matches in charge, they were thrashed 5-2 by relegation-threatened West Bromwich Albion. "It was a big slap in the face," said Tuchel, who nonetheless felt it was a freak result.
“If we play the same game again, I would bet a lot of money we would win it 99 out of 100 times,” he said. “They were almost in our pocket after we were 1-0 up. We won all the statistics, with 10 men and with 11 men: expected goals, the bypassed defenders, we win the touches in the box, the shots on target, we win everything. Once you suffer a big loss in a weird game it's absolutely normal that they are reactions.”
Porto are without their two top scorers with Sergio Oliveira and Mehdi Teremi, who have chipped in with 34 goals between them this season, both suspended for the first leg. They defeated Juventus in the last 16 but are the underdogs in the last eight. Porto captain Pepe claimed Chelsea celebrated when drawn against them but both Tuchel and midfielder Mateo Kovacic denied that.
“In the quarter-finals of the Champions League, if you wish for an opponent you will lose yourself in crazy mind games,” Tuchel said. “We come from a competition in which we are able to lose against the team 19th in the table 5-2. So we know how humbly we have to approach every game.”
