Cesar Azpilicueta was reportedly dishing out orders to his Chelsea teammates from the bench during the Champions League encounter with Real Madrid last night.
According to football.london, the club captain made sure his voice was heard within the buzz of the Bernabeu’s beehive, despite being a substitute for the whole game.
Azpilicueta had to watch one from the sidelines as his co-workers came so close to an epic European comeback yesterday.
The story of Chelsea’s trip to Spain
Chelsea nearly overcame the 3-1 defeat suffered in the first leg at Stamford Bridge but fell at the very final hurdle.
Goals from Mason Mount, Antonio Rudiger and Timo Werner left the competition’s holders on the brink of reaching the semi-finals for a second successive season.
However, Madrid responded in typically defiant fashion with a goal ten minutes from the end.
Karim Benzema then sealed the tie in the first half of extra time, securing a hattrick of headers past Edouard Mendy across the two fixtures.
Carlo Ancelotti’s men probably feel they escaped from an early exit rather fortunately.
Their English guests squandered several chances with the aggregate score line level, not to mention having one goal ruled out by VAR.
Kai Havertz also seemingly had a strong penalty shout completely overlooked.
Reece James had Vinicius Jnr ‘locked down’ all evening, but the one time he allowed his direct opponent room to manoeuvre, he was severely punished.
Cesar is second in command
Thomas Tuchel must’ve felt seriously wounded by the outcome, not merely because of the decisions he believed went against his men.
The German could be seen furiously disagreeing with the officials throughout the match.
He eventually received a yellow card for one particular outburst, joined in the book by his skipper.
Along with barking orders to the players on the pitch, Azpilicueta gave the referee Szymon Marciniak a piece of his mind.
Marciniak got his own back by booking the Spaniard after he attempted to hurry Madrid up taking a throw-in.
That man will bleed blue.
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