Chelsea continued in the International Champions Cup on Saturday evening, losing to Real Madrid, 3-2, at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.
Attendance for the match at Michigan Stadium – widely called ‘the Big House’ in the U.S. – was 105,826. It was a record attendance for a Chelsea match.
The Blues got off to a very slow start, with Real Madrid left-back Marcelo bagging two goals in the 19th and 26th minutes. Mariano Diaz added a third with a wonderstrike in the 37th minute.
Facing a 3-0 deficit at half-time, I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall in the Chelsea dressing room to hear what Antonio Conte had to say to his men.
He introduced four new players at the half – Thibaut Courtois, Nathaniel Chalobah, Michy Batshuayi and Juan Cuadrado. Those four players played a key role in the second half comeback attempt, as Eden Hazard scored a pair of goals on his Chelsea preseason return in the 80th and 91st minutes.
