Chelsea FC "deserved" to advance to the Champions League semi-finals over Real Madrid, according to Thomas Tuchel.
After Chelsea FC were knocked out in dramatic fashion on Tuesday night, Thomas Tuchel argued that his team "deserved" to advance to the Champions League semi-finals at the cost of Real Madrid.
The south west London side put up a fantastic display in the return leg of their quarter-final tie at the Bernabeu, scoring three goals to take the tie to the Bernabeu after losing 3-1 in the first leg at Stamford Bridge last week.
Mason Mount, Antonio Rudiger, and Timo Werner all scored for the Blues in a 3-0 victory in Spain.
The Blues were pulled back by Rodrygo's goal in the 80th minute, and Real Madrid's Karim Benzema scored the winner in the 96th minute to send Real Madrid through to the quarterfinals.
Tuchel claimed that he was extremely happy of his players' effort and that, despite the loss, his side deserved to go to the semi-finals.
"We are really unhappy and very pleased at the same time," Tuchel remarked during his post-match press conference.
"It was a tremendous contest for us. We earned everything we got. We scored four goals and had several opportunities to score more. We had bad luck. We were defeated by individual excellence and offensive conversion.
"It's hard to put into words, yet this magic motivates you." It gave the entire squad the lift they needed to get to the semi-finals, and Carvajal was outstanding at center-back.
"I'm ecstatic to have advanced to the semi-finals with this club." We had to dig deep, but I'm satisfied."