Champions League Final 2021: Head-to-Head Record Before Man City vs. Chelsea
May 28, 2021
Manchester City and Chelsea are two of the most familiar foes you will ever see contest a UEFA Champions League final.
The Premier League teams will face off in the second all-English UCL final in the past three seasons. Liverpool defeated Tottenham Hotspur in 2019.
Although Manchester City has been the better team over the past few years, it has had trouble dealing with Chelsea recently. The west London side captured three of the past four meetings with the Premier League champions.
UEFA Champions League Final Info
Date: Saturday, May 29
Start Time: 3 p.m. ET
Venue: Estadio do Dragao, Porto, Portugal
TV: CBS
Live Stream: Paramount+
If you examine the overall form of Manchester City and Chelsea this season, Pep Guardiola's side should have the edge in Porto.
City produced 19 more league points than Chelsea en route to the title and added the Carabao Cup to garnish Guardiola's extensive resume with the club.
The Champions League is the only trophy Guardiola has not won with City. He won the competition as manager on two occasions during his time with Barcelona.
Chelsea is playing in its second final of the campaign. It beat Manchester City 1-0 on April 17 to advance to the FA Cup final, where it lost to Leicester City.
Three weeks after the teams' FA Cup semifinal, the Blues defeated Manchester City in league play by a 2-1 scoreline. Both of those results occurred after Thomas Tuchel took over as manager.
In the lone City-Chelsea game this season for which Frank Lampard was in charge of the Blues, Manchester City won 3-1 on January 3.
Tuchel has engineered a turnaround at Stamford Bridge that has brought a defensive toughness to the squad, but the number of goals scored has also dropped. Over the past 12 matches in all competitions, neither Chelsea nor its opponents has scored more than two goals in a contest.
The past two City-Chelsea matches fall into that category, but the one significant difference between those games and the UCL final will be the presence of a healthy Kevin De Bruyne.
De Bruyne was taken off in the 48th minute of the FA Cup semifinal, and he did not feature in the league defeat at the Etihad Stadium. When City won at Stamford Bridge on January 3, De Bruyne provided a goal and an assist.
Phil Foden, Ilkay Gundogan and Raheem Sterling also have goals in the three head-to-head clashes this term. For Chelsea, Hakim Ziyech has two tallies and Callum Hudson-Odoi and Marcos Alonso have one each.
All four of Chelsea's goals occurred in the second half, with the earliest coming from Ziyech in the 55th minute on April 17. Conversely, all four of City's tallies in those contests occurred in the first half, including all three in the January 3 triumph.
If those trends hold up, City could be on the way to its first UCL trophy. But if Chelsea plays tighter defense in the opening stanza, it could be in better shape to leave Portugal as the European champion.
Statistics obtained from FBRef.com.