Thomas Tuchel’s men have been tipped to emerge as Europe’s best, with the English top-flight side getting the majority of votes cast in a poll

Chelsea will emerge as champions of this season’s Champions League, according to Goal readers.

Despite losing 1-0 to FC Porto in their quarter-final second leg clash, the Stamford Bridge giants booked a place in the competition’s semi-final.

The English team claimed a two-goal advantage at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan last week, and when the reverse fixture looked to be heading for a goalless draw, substitute Mehdi Taremi put the ball past Edouard Mendy in the closing stages.

With that, they qualified for the last four.

While they wait for their last four opponents in Real Madrid or Liverpool, we asked our readers if Thomas Tuchel’s team can rule Europe a second time.

In a poll conducted on Twitter, 53.3 percent of total votes cast believe Chelsea – who have reached their first Champions League semi-final in seven years – will be crowned as champions at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium, Istanbul.

Of the votes cast, 27.1 percent of fans think the diadem will go elsewhere, whereas, 19.6% are doubtful of the Londoners’ chances.

Meanwhile, the Blues’ skipper Cesar Azpilicueta has praised his team for holding their nerve to scale the hurdle the Portuguese side presented.

“We knew that Porto are a tough team,” he told media per club website.

“They knocked out Juventus, they play with a lot of intensity, and we knew that we had to suffer, even though we had a very good result from the first leg.

“Despite the score at the end I think we controlled the game and we were a bit unlucky in the last few metres where we could maybe create more chances.

“Porto have very good attacking players, they are used to dominating games in their league, they create a lot of goals with different attacking options, they have people on the bench. So, they are a very good team.

“We will see who we are going to play against. When you are into the best four teams in Europe everything’s going to be difficult and they are obviously two games where we are going to give everything because we know we have a chance.”

Tuchel’s team will now shift their attention to Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City.

source:- goal