THE ATHLETIC
Thomas Tuchel has opened up about his Chelsea departure and said he was left “shocked” after claiming a meeting to sack him lasted only minutes.
Tuchel was sacked in September on the morning after a Champions League defeat to Dinamo Zagreb, with the club’s new owners, a Todd Boehly-led US consortium, declaring it “the right time” to bring in a new head coach after their takeover four months earlier.
The German coach, who has now been appointed at Bayern Munich, had won three trophies in 20 months at Stamford Bridge and he admitted that how his reign ended still stung.
Speaking ahead of his first game as Bayern boss — against former club Borussia Dortmund — on Saturday, Tuchel said of his Chelsea exit: “It was a kind of shock.
“I felt it, strangely enough, in the morning when I drove to the training centre that the meeting we would have would be an unusual meeting, and it was a short meeting. It was three to five minutes. I was also not in the mood to talk longer to the decision-makers, I have to say.
“It was a shock for all of us. We had the feeling we were in the right spot at the right time to achieve big things, to build, to stay longer. We had big relationships within the staff. It still hurts in a way to not see these people on a daily basis.
“I love this job, I have the passion. There’s no funnier place than a dressing room; joy, good jokes. That is what I miss the most. We built an extraordinary bond because of the circumstances; we started during COVID, Brexit, then came the change of ownership. We were a strong group on the training ground. It felt like a family.”
