Chelsea outclassed Porto in the first leg of their quarterfinal tie winning by 2-0 on the day. The second leg is also going to be played in Sevilla.
Chelsea have a ton of experience when it comes to knockout stages since they have won the first leg of the UEFA Champions League knockout tie for the 11th time, progressing on eight of the previous 10 occasions, failing only against Barcelona in 1999-2000 and Liverpool in 2006-07. Chelsea are unbeaten in Champions League this season (P9 W7 D2 L0) and could become the second team to go unbeaten after 10 games.
The same cannot be said about Porto as they are winless in their 7 matches against English sides in the UEFA Champions League (D2 L5), scoring only twice and conceding 16 goals.
TEAM NEWS
Thomas Tuchel will have a fully-fit squad to choose from in the second leg. Midfielder N’Golo Kante has recovered from a hamstring injury and is in contention to start after his amazing performance against Atletico Madrid. After returning from injury Christian Pulisic is in red hot form scoring two in the match against Crystal Palace. Thiago Silva could start in the back three as he adds much-needed experience to the backline.
Porto have to score three goals to turn the tables around to advance to the next stage but will be missing Sergio Oliveira. Oliveira has scored 17 goals in all competitions for Porto, he missed the first leg due to suspension but the boss is sceptical that he could play the full 90 minutes.
POSSIBLE LINE-UP
Chelsea: Mendy; Azpilicueta, Zouma, Rüdiger; James, Jorginho, Kovačić, Alonso; Mount, Havertz, Pulišić
Porto: Marchesín; Manafá, Pepe, Mbemba, Zaidu; Corona, Sérgio Oliveira, Uribe, Otávio; Marega, Tare.
PRE-MATCH PRESS CONFERENCE
Thomas Tuchel, Chelsea manager: “We have to accept against Porto that the game will be up and down. Sometimes they overload sides and give you a lot of questions. The most important thing is to fully focus on what we do, forget we already have a result [like] we did against Palace [in the league at the weekend]. We can be confident. We are always a tough team to play against.”
Sérgio Conceição, Porto coach: “We are confident. We know that we face a difficult task, but we are here to give the answer that we have to give. We have to be a compact, cohesive team. We have to score goals, but also to avoid conceding. We were good in the first leg, but not that good; if we were, we would have won. We will try to improve on what was a good team performance.”