Chelsea are through to the Champions League semi finals, and the win over Porto in the quarter finals produced a few fantastic and notable stats.
Firstly and most impressively, there’s this one, from OPTA:
8 – @ChelseaFC have reached the UEFA Champions League semi-finals for the eighth time, more than any other English side in the competition’s history. Accustomed. pic.twitter.com/kjpVJE8JmJ
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) April 13, 2021
Chelsea are now the English team with the best record of reaching Champions League semis. It’s been a long time since our last one, which came in 2014, but let’s hope now we can start building our lead.
It was an incredibly scrappy game, and Porto fouled everyone in sight – but particularly Christian Pulisic. It was a record breaking effort on their part, as Paul Carr noted:
Christian Pulisic was fouled 11 times by Porto today. 🇺🇸
That's the most fouls suffered by any player in a UCL game since Lionel Messi vs Real Madrid in 2011.
— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) April 13, 2021
Jorginho has had a superb couple of games in a row recently, and tonight he set a new high water mark – matching N’Golo Kante’s supreme 2018 showing against Barcelona in terms of tackles.
Jorginho's eight tackles were the most by a #Chelsea player in a #UCL game since N'Golo Kante versus Barcelona in 2018.
[via @NizaarKinsella]
— Absolute Chelsea (@AbsoluteChelsea) April 13, 2021
We’ve been critical of the Italian plenty of times in the past – and plenty of times he’s deserved it. But tonight he was brilliant, and we might not have made it through without him.
