Chelsea shocked Atletico Madrid in the first tie of their UCL round of 16 encounter, and it is down to two secret strategies their Manager Thomas Tuchel used.

Olivier Giroud's overhead kick goal for Chelsea

The blues found the breakthrough in the second half, and it was all thanks to Olivier Giroud who scored a beautiful overhead kick in the 68th minute to give Chelsea all the necessary advantage.

  1. Playing Giroud as centre forward over Abraham, with Mount and Alonso as suppliers: Tuchel's first strategy was to use his veteran striker Olivier Giroud over his competition Tammy Abraham, and the reason for this selection was to capitalize on the creative outlets he had placed around him, with the likes of Alonso and Mount as well as Odoi who are good suppliers for a centre forward. The French striker did not fail to repay that faith put in him, with a half chance created in the 68th minute such a talent.
  2. Playing veteran defenders over in-form ones: Thomas tuchel seems to be the kind of manager that prefers to go for experience over recent hype, and although he gives everyone a chance in his team, he is more confident in giving chances to experienced players. This he did with the inclusion of Alonso, Azpicueleta, Rudiger and Christensen today. Even though he would have selected young defenders like Zouma, Ben Chilwel and Recee James.

It was a well worked strategy from the blues manager, who had instructed his team to keep the ball and be fast in their distribution. In the end it was a well deserved win for the visitors.