On May 29th 2021, Thomas Tuchel, who had only been appointed Chelsea manager in January of the same year, led the Blues to an unexpected Champions League title.
The German manager, who had taken over from Frank Lampard, changed the system in place at Stamford Bridge, and decided that he would play with three central defenders.
It was a bold choice, but one that has served him well ever since he started, with Chelsea currently top of the Premier League after 14 games this year.
One man who looked at that and decided he could do it too was Didier Deschamps, who has started using the formation a lot more with the France national team of late, with some decent success to boot.
He said: “No national team or club team has won a big trophy in a system with three defender. The one who managed it, it’s Tuchel with Chelsea in the Champions League last May. Many teams tried to play with three or five defenders, depending on how you look at it. So, OK, wanting to copy others, it’s possible, but if you don’t have the player’s for it, it’s complicated.
“A copy is often pale. I repeat, there’s different ways, different possibilities, different manners of achieving a success”.
Deschamps was then directly asked if he’d inspired himself from the Chelsea manager: “Not inspired, but I watched. It served me in my analysis”.
