Chelsea: Thomas Tuchel needed lots of chocolate to help with stress of re-watching Real Madrid loss

Thomas Tuchel rewatched Chelsea’s Champions League defeat by Real Madrid in full after getting home from Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night, saying it took copious amounts of chocolate to get him through the miserable 90 minutes.

Tuchel also watched back the 3-1 first-leg loss in full the following morning with his analysts and that only angered him further. 

‘The feeling lasted,’ said Chelsea’s manager, who wants to get their season back on track at Southampton on Saturday after also losing 4-1 in their last Premier League match to Brentford.

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has revealed the stress of his side’s loss against Real Madrid

‘You sit there in the middle of the night and the amount of chocolate I needed was immense to go through the match again, to compensate. You start writing and writing and writing and you realise you’re writing more and more.

‘At some point, you press the button to fast forward, you watch it in double speed so that it passes quicker. You know you’re not in a good place. 

‘You need to stop and take a walk through the kitchen and living room and calm down. It was not nice to watch.’

The German admitted he needed copious amounts of chocolate to rewatch the Blues’ 3-1 defeat at Stamford Bridge in their Champions League quarter-final first leg on Wednesday

Tuchel said the only silver lining is that he noticed certain tactical improvements which could be made and may help Chelsea in the second leg at the Bernabeu this Tuesday. 

However, he then played down their chances of a special Champions League comeback by describing overturning that 3-1 first-leg loss as ‘almost impossible’.

‘I am very realistic,’ Tuchel said. ‘OK, there is no more away goals rule – this is a very good thing for us in this tie now. But we stay realistic.

And Tuchel claimed turning the tie around in Spain next week would be ‘almost impossible’

‘We will try to win, for sure. But I will not get carried away with thoughts to a miracle. In football anything is possible but the task is almost impossible and that’s only realistic.’ 

First, Chelsea need to ensure they remain favourites to finish third in the Premier League by beating Southampton on Saturday.

They may be without Romelu Lukaku and Hakim Ziyech with both facing late fitness tests after missing training with knocks. Callum Hudson-Odoi is facing weeks on the sidelines with an Achilles issue.