There are few who seem less comfortable with the concept of the heroic near-miss than Thomas Tuchel. The chances are that he is likelier to deem it unacceptable. When Chelsea’s defence of their Champions League trophy ended in glorious failure, beating Real Madrid in the Bernabeu after a magnificent comeback, but eliminated on aggregate by another, Tuchel cut a bad-tempered figure, complaining that referee Szymon Marciniak had smiled, laughed and had a good time with Real manager Carlo Ancelotti.
And if he might have inadvertently offered an insight into the amiable Ancelotti’s enduring success, the 2021 and 2022 Champions League-winning managers represent opposites. They showed there are very different ways to conquer Europe: Real spent much of the knockout stages trailing and their aggregate scores alone – 3-2, 5-4, 6-5 – conveyed some of the sense of the drama in their progress to Paris. Chelsea scored more goals in Madrid alone than they conceded – a mere two – in seven knockout matches the previous year.
