Kings of Europe: Chelsea beats Manchester City to win Champions League
Porto (Portugal): As Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta cradled the European Cup before thrusting it into the air to the backdrop of fireworks, Pep Guardiola and his distraught Manchester City players stood way behind the winner's rostrum and looked on in anguish.
Champions League glory once again for Chelsea, nine years after its first title and just 123 days after manager Thomas Tuchel's season-changing arrival at the club.
Yet more misery in world soccer's biggest club competition for City and Guardiola, its genius manager whose overthinking proved costly once more.
Germany forward Kai Havertz's 42nd-minute goal earned Chelsea a surprisingly comfortable 1-0 win in Porto in the Champions League's third all-English final on Saturday.
That the last match of a club season heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic was settled by a goal from Havertz felt apt, given he suffered badly after contracting the disease midway through his first year at the club having signed for nearly 100 million.
He has recovered to play a big role in Chelsea's end to the season, and showed why the club made him the centerpiece of their 300 million spending spree last offseason in the way he ran onto a through-ball by Mason Mount, rounded goalkeeper Ederson Moraes and rolled the ball into an empty net.
I really don't know what to say, Havertz said.
I waited a long time for this.
As for his fellow German,Tuchel, he only had to wait one season to get over the disappointment of losing the 2020 final when in charge of Paris Saint-Germain. Fired by PSG in December, he was hired by Chelsea a month later to resuscitate a team that had lost its way and had dropped to ninth in the Premier League and has delivered a Champions League title four months later.
It was billed as a tactical duel between Tuchel and Guardiola, two of the world's most innovative coaches, and there was a clear winner.
Guardiola will surely regret tinkering with a settled team that had swept City to its first Champions League final and to the verge of another trophy treble, after winning the Premier League and the English League Cup.
Starting without a striker was expected Guardiola has preferred that in the Champions League knockout matches but going without a specialist holding midfielder in Fernandinho or Rodri was a major surprise and destabilized City.
City lost its shape and its renowned composure. Seeking to win the Champions League for the third time as a coach and first since 2011, Guardiola was guilty of overthinking his tactics again in a big game as he was for City's quarterfinal eliminations at the hands of Lyon, Tottenham and Liverpool over the past three years.
I did what I thought was the best decision," Guardiola said.
It was a decision that backfired, though. Ilkay Gundogan, City's top scorer this season and a revelation in his attacking-midfield role, ended up dropping in as the anchorman in midfield and he struggled to protect City's defense.
Indeed, for Chelsea's goal, Mount had so much time and space to thread a pass from inside his own half through the center of City's defense -- which was opened up by Timo Werner's decoy run -- for Havertz to run onto.
So, City's long, often-painful and lavishly funded journey to the summit of European soccer remains incomplete. The sight of its star midfielder Kevin De Bruyne coming off the field in the 60th minute, slightly wobbly and clearly concussed after a clash for heads with Antonio Rudiger, just added to the pain and made a comeback even more unlikely.
Sergio Aguero came on in the 76th minute for his final appearance after 10 trophy-filled years at City, but the Argentina striker couldn't produce any late heroics this time.
City's players slumped to the ground at the final whistle as Rudiger sprinted the length of the field to celebrate with the nearly 6,000 Chelsea fans who made up the 14,110 attendance at Estadio do Dragao, a late replacement venue for the title match that was originally scheduled to be staged in Turkey.
Tuchel played with his daughters on the field. Christian Pulisic, who came on as a second-half substitute to become the first American player to feature in a Champions League final, posed with the trophy in a USA sweatshirt.
Mount burst into tears when he saw his father in the stands, What a team Man City are you have seen what they did in the Premier League," Mount said.
It was such a tough game. We got a goal and defended well the whole game.
City never had the control Guardiola so craves and could easily have conceded more on the counterattack.
Werner, who worked the channels well behind City's full backs, had already squandered two great chances before the goal, first miskicking from Havertz's cut-back and then shooting tamely at Ederson from close range.
In the second half, Pulisic ran onto Havertz's pass but slipped a shot just wide of the post.
That didn't stop Chelsea becoming the 13th multiple European champion, adding to its title from 2012 and Tuchel becoming the third straight German to coach a Champions League-winning team after Liverpool's Juergen Klopp in 2019 and Hansi Flick at Bayern Munich last season.
It's a huge step to arrive in the final and it's an even bigger one to bite your way through and to make it all the way to the cup, Tuchel said.
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Congress not just removed clothes at AI Summit but exposed its intellectual bankruptcy: PM Modi
New Delhi (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday came down heavily on the Congress for the shirtless protest by its youth wing members at the AI Impact Summit recently, saying the opposition party can tear as many clothes as it wants, but his government will continue to work for the country's progress.
Addressing the News18 Rising Bharat Summit, Modi also said that the Congress did not just remove its clothes in front of foreign guests but also exposed its intellectual bankruptcy, asserting that the millennials have already taught the country's oldest party a lesson, and now Gen-Z is ready to do the same.
In an apparent jibe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Modi said the opposition was unhappy seeing the statue of "Babbar Shers" (lions) installed atop the new Parliament building, but their own “Babbar Shers" were running away after facing the "shoes" of the general public.
Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, had said on February 24 that he was proud of the "Babbar Shers" of the Indian Youth Congress, who "fearlessly" raised their voice at the AI Summit.
"Congress ke Babbar Sher logon ki jute kha ke bhaag gaye (The 'lions' of Congress ran away after being hit by shoes by the public)," Modi said.
The prime minister was apparently referring to the protesting Youth Congress workers being heckled by some people at the AI Summit.
On February 20, a group of Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers staged a dramatic protest inside Hall No. 5 of the summit venue in Delhi by removing their shirts to reveal T-shirts printed with anti-government slogans, triggering a political slugfest between the BJP and the Congress.
“Congress can tear as many clothes as it wants, but we will continue to work for India's development. Congress not just shed clothes at the AI Summit, it also exposed its incapabilities in front of foreign guests,” Modi said in his nearly 45-minute speech.
He said the AI Summit was a moment of pride for the entire nation, but unfortunately, Congress attempted to tarnish this national celebration.
"When the frustration and despair of failure weigh on the mind, and arrogance makes one's head spin, such a mindset emerges to defame the country," he said.
The prime minister also alleged that the Congress always takes refuge in Mahatma Gandhi to hide its failures, but tries to give credit to one family for anything good.
"People of our country welcomed every good step taken by our government, but the Congress only knows how to oppose everything. The votes of Congress are not stolen; rather, people do not consider Congress worthy of their votes. Millennials first taught a lesson to Congress, now Gen-Z is ready to do the same," he said.
Modi also said that in a democracy, the role of the opposition is not just about blindly opposing every move of the government, but presenting an alternative vision, and that is why the "enlightened public" of the country is "teaching a lesson" to Congress now.
In 1984, the Congress got 39 per cent of the votes and more than 400 seats. But its votes declined consistently in the subsequent elections, Modi said.
"Today, the condition of the Congress is such that it has more than 50 MLAs in just four states. Over the past 40 years, the number of young voters in the country has increased, but the Congress has clearly diminished," Modi said.
On the recent trade deals that India signed with foreign countries, Modi said the country has discovered its inherent strength and strengthened its institutions, which prompted developed nations to come forward and sign deals with India.
He also said that even after Independence, some people ensured that the colonial mindset remained for their own benefits.
"No country would have done trade deals with us had we not discovered our inherent strength and strengthened our institutions. Because of this, developed nations have come forward to sign trade deals (with India)," he said.
Modi also said that even after Independence, India was unable to break free from the mentality of slavery, for which the country is still paying the price.
"The latest example of this can be seen in the ongoing discussions on trade deals. Some people are shocked – ‘what has happened, how did this happen? Why are developed countries so eager to do trade deals with India?’ The answer is – a confident India is emerging from despair and frustration," he said.
Over the long span of history, centuries of slavery had instilled a feeling of inferiority, while the ideology imported from other countries deeply ingrained in society the notion that Indians were uneducated and subservient, the prime minister said.
"If the country was still mired in the despair of the pre-2014 era, counted among the 'Fragile Five', and gripped by policy paralysis, who would strike a trade deal with us?
"Over the past 11 years, a new surge of energy has flowed into the nation's consciousness. India is now striving to reclaim its lost potential," Modi said.
The prime minister also said that due to the recent series of reforms initiated by his government, the world's most powerful nations are now coming forward to sign trade deals with India.
"There was a time when India was only a consumer of new technology. But now we are not just developing them, but also setting standards," he said.
The prime minister also said that India's digital public infrastructure has become a subject of global discussion today, and every move India makes is closely watched and analysed across the world.
"The AI Summit was a clear example of this," he said.
The government's 'Viksit Bharat by 2047' is not a political slogan but an effort to correct the mistakes of the previous Congress governments by making India self-reliant, he said.
“So far, in every industrial revolution, India and the Global South largely remained followers, but in this age of artificial intelligence (AI), India is not only participating but is also shaping it. India now has its own AI startup ecosystem,” Modi said.
He also said the world is astonished that India, where around 30 million families lived in darkness until 2014, has now risen to become one of the top countries in solar power capacity.
India, where many cities had no hope of improving their public transport system, has now become the country with the world's third-largest Metro network, Modi said.
“The Indian Railways was known only for chronic delays and sluggish speeds, yet semi-high-speed connectivity like Vande Bharat and Namo Bharat has now become possible,” he said.
Nation-building never happens through short-term thinking; it is shaped by a long-term vision, patience and timely decisions, the prime minister added.
