Chelsea travelled to Croatia on Tuesday evening to take on Dinamo Zagreb in the opening game of the 2022/2023 UEFA Champions League but ended up getting a shock defeat.
The Blues who came back from behind to on Saturday to beat West Ham in the Premier League did not have similar luck on the night.
Thomas Tuchel opted to start new signing, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, despite the latter’s face injury. Wesley Fofana also played his second Chelsea game but fellow new signing, Zakaria could only make the bench.
A lone goal scored by Mislav Oršić early on in the first half was enough to inflict defeat of the two time European Champions. The Croatians were happy to sit back and absorb pressure, much like West Ham did and hope to do Chelsea damage on the counter.
And it paid off. Chelsea had everyone in Dinamo’s half but when the ball kindly fell to Ljubicic, he passed it long to Petkovic who lifted it unto the overlapping Mislav Oršić, with the latter dinking it over the onrushing Kepa.
The Spaniard was starting in place of Mendy for the first time this season.
Chelsea battled from then on but were unable to salvage a point as it ended 1 nil. Chelsea have now conceded a goal in all seven of their games this term, despite spending £202m on defenders.
To compound things for the Blues, their young guns also fell 4:2 to Zagreb’s B team in the UEFA Champions Youth League.
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