Chelsea football club has redesigned the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium in Seville, Spain to look like the club’s home ground in London, Stamford Bridge.
The stadium will be used as Chelsea’s home ground for the second leg of the UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie against Porto. The first leg of the tie was also played at the stadium due to coronavirus restrictions between Portugal and England.
Since Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium would be used as Chelsea’s home tonight, April 13, at 20:00, the club decided to give the stadium a Stamford Bridge look which includes a big banner containing the club’s logo and “Pride of London” slogan.
In a tweet via the club’s official Twitter handle, the club’s Twitter handler wrote: “Making ourselves at home!”
Making ourselves at home! ๐๏ธ๐ #CHEPOR
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) April 13, 2021
๐ฅ๐ฎ๐บ๐ผ๐ป ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฐ๐ต๐ฒ๐ ๐ฃ๐ถ๐๐ท๐๐ฎ๐ป ๐ฆ๐๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐บ ๐ #UCL pic.twitter.com/udlbt3xEaZ
Just like how it has been since mid-March, 2020, the match will be played behind closed doors. Recall that the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie between Chelsea and Porto ended 2-0 in favor of the Premier League club.
Based on this, Chelsea’s coach Thomas Tuchel and his boys are expected to beat the Portuguese side or draw with the club to scale through to the semi-final stage of the competition.
Ahead of the important game, coach Thomas Tuchel highlighted how important it is for the club to have a fit N’Golo Kantรฉ available for the game. He however noted that the club has been trying to manage the fitness level of the midfielder.
The German coach noted that he wasn’t expecting that the midfielder would be available for the first leg due to fitness issues but the midfielder was fit early enough for the first leg of the competition and will be available for tonight’s game.
Tuchel said: “I was unbelievably happy when he told me that he would travel with us last week to Sevilla because I didnโt expect that. The plan was for him to arrive against Crystal Palace.
“So he arrived early, which was amazing, and he was confident to go on the pitch and he was strong to help us in the last 20 minutes with all his quality.
“The downside of this wonderful decision was that he lost a bit of sleep after that with travel issues back from Seville, that he lost more workload in training because he was sitting on the bench playing only 20 minutes, the next day he suffered from traveling because he could not train like he normally would.
“That was the downside and we decided again to bring him from the bench against Palace. I will make the decision tomorrow morning about central midfield.
“Itโs hard to imagine a game like this without NG and at the same time we really need to be absolutely careful about him, be certain that we donโt take risks with his health and injury situation.”
