Chelsea went back to Seville six days on and back to the
Champions League semi-finals seven years later. A 2-0 win over Porto here last week ultimately proved enough, Thomas Tuchel’s team returning to the same stadium to defend that lead and edge into the next round, where
Real Madrid or
Liverpool await. They may be entitled to believe that the journey can continue, too; there will be tougher tests but this is not a team easily undone nor distracted, even if they were denied another clean sheet by an extraordinary last-minute goal from Mehdi Taremi.
This never looked in any doubt until then, and suddenly there was a nervous moment when Porto appealed for a penalty immediately after the goal. But if that briefly brought nerves, it had come too late for
Chelsea to suffer for long. Before the ball flew past Édouard Mendy, Porto had threatened only occasionally.