Now that Thomas Tuchel has left Chelsea, we expect to hear people speak a little more openly about his time at the club.
The positive things have been said – now we expect a trickle of bad vibes about what went strong.
That has started with Christian Pulisic, one of the more visibly frustrated players towards the end of Tuchel’s time.
His latest quotes are about when the manager left him out of the team for the second leg against Real Madrid last season.
He claims he was told by Tuchel that he would play, only to be let down with the revelation that Kai Havertz had been picked instead, as you can see in the quotes embedded here:
Christian Pulisic on Real Madrid second-leg:
"What happened before that game was hugely disappointing for me. l’d had a really good first leg performance and our following match was against Fulham in the league."
[via 'Christian Pulisic: My Journey So Far']
— Absolute Chelsea (@AbsoluteChelsea) September 20, 2022
Christian Pulisic:
"Tuchel told me that he was resting me for the second leg and as a result I didn’t play a single minute in the Fulham game. Then on match day… Tuchel tells me he’s changed his mind and he’s going with Kai."
[via 'Christian Pulisic: My Journey So Far']
— Absolute Chelsea (@AbsoluteChelsea) September 20, 2022
Christian Pulisic:
"I honestly was dumbfounded and very disappointed. I thought that I’d earned a start and, most importantly, he had assured me previously I was going to start."
[via 'Christian Pulisic: My Journey So Far']
— Absolute Chelsea (@AbsoluteChelsea) September 20, 2022
It’s a painful story, and we can understand Pulisic’s frustration. But that’s football, and Tuchel only wanted what was best for the team. It almost worked too – Chelsea went 3-0 up before letting it all slip.
First, big credit to Pulisic for keeping this to himself until now. Second, I have to respectfully disagree with SuperFrank on his “that’s football” comment. Let’s not let Tuchel off the hook that easily.
Trust and respect are everything in the workplace and this incident shows Tuchel was willing to torch his relationship with a player over a single result. So, yes, “that’s football” in the sense that it’s the manager’s prerogative to make that decision, BUT at what cost? How does the player (in this case Pulisic) ever trust him again? If Tuchel didn’t place any higher value on his players’ trust than he did in this case, then how many more stories are there like this that just haven’t surfaced yet? I’d surmise there are undoubtedly others.
It’s easy to reduce sports to X’s and O’s, and forget that players are human beings. We saw Chelsea’s performances dip significantly after the first 50 games under Tuchel. Some of this may be down to X’s and O’s (i.e., opponents figuring out Tuchel’s tactics), but this Pulisic story raises big, big questions about how much of it was down to his failure at man management and the slow ebb of player trust and enthusiasm to play for the man.