Mateo Kovacic has praised Thomas Tuchel’s impact at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea prepares to take on Manchester City at the Estádio do Dragão in Portugal for the Champions League final on Saturday.
Tuchel in his first few months at the helm led a struggling Chelsea side from 9th position to the top-four spot as well as the Champions League and FA Cup final.
After losing the FA Cup title to Leicester City a fortnight ago, Tuchel’s men were on the brink of conceding their top-four chase to same opponent on final match-day following a 2-1 defeat at Villa Park. But, Spurs were right on time as they thumped the Foxes 4-2 to help Chelsea scale.
Despite struggling at the closing stages of the season, Kovacic has set his sights on winning this UEFA Champions League trophy.
The Croatian feels it has already been a good season for the Blues, but he is hoping to make it even better by lifting silverware when we meet Manchester City in Saturday’s Champions League final.
“He came in and from the first minute the players felt a great connection with him,” Kovacic said about Tuchel. “From the first meeting and the first game it was like he’d been here for two years, so everything came quite naturally and we approached his way of playing well, we understood each other from the day he came.
“He did a good job and we had a great season in the end, because we came to the Champions League final, reached the FA Cup final, got top four. So it’s a good season, but not perfect because we need to win a trophy.”
