Tremendous Tielemans: How the Belgian’s strike trumped Tuchel’s adjustments to win Leicester their first FA Cup – tactical analysis

The 2021 FA Cup final clash featured two potential top-4 candidates of the 2020-21 Premier League season, Chelsea and Leicester City. While Leicester City beat Southampton to clinch their ticket to Wembley, Chelsea overcame Manchester City last month for the first time to make it into the finals. 

Both the teams, would like to end their season with a top-4 finish and take home the FA Cup with Chelsea additionally having the Champions League left to play for. This article features the tactical analysis of the match and how Brendon Rodgers’ side overcame Tuchel’s men to win their first FA Cup. Let’s begin the analysis.

Lineups

Chelsea made 5 changes to the lineup that was defeated by Arsenal in their recent London derby. The likes of Rudiger, Marcos Alonso, N’Golo Kante, Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner were drafted into the lineup as Tuchel went with his strongest team available.

On the other hand, Leicester retained the same team that beat Manchester United few days back at Old Trafford as Rodgers’ men kept an eye on securing a top-4 spot for the next season while also prioritizing the FA Cup.

Leicester’s press stifles Chelsea at the start

Chelsea in their game against Arsenal struggled to progress the ball efficiently against their rivals’ intense man-oriented press at the attacking third. Their press eventually forced a mistake from Jorginho that led to a goal. Leicester decided to use the same tactics against Chelsea in finals with a similar approach albeit with some minor changes.