That’s the thing with sports and odds - the unpredictability of basically any sporting event is what creates the avenue for betting and fantasy games. Without those factors, such activities would hardly be as fun or even exist.

It’s very likely that we’ll see odds overcome on one of the grandest stages of them all very soon, with the UEFA Champions League final set to play out at the end of May. Premier League champions-elect Manchester City will face Chelsea in an all-English final to bring an end to what has been an exciting season of European football.

Manchester City has been one of the most dominant sides in the Premier League for the last decade and recently booked their first Champions League final with an impressive pair of wins over French side Paris Saint-Germain. Chelsea, on the other hand, has been twice before.

The Etihad outfit will be going into the final as the favorites despite losing to Chelsea on Saturday in top-flight action. The Blues delayed the title celebrations, with City needing one more win to confirm their seat at the top of the English league, coming from behind to win 2-1 in extra time.

Such scenes were certainly far from the mind when the team languished in 10th place on the Premier League table earlier this year. The club was forced to make the unpopular decision of firing legend Frank Lampard as manager and replacing him with Thomas Tuchel. The transformation was almost immediate. The German tactician now has the Blues sitting in third place in the standings while in contention for both the FA Cup and Champions League, with two finals on the horizon.

Tuchel masterminded the shocking dismantling of Spanish supremos Real Madrid over the span of the last two weeks, guiding his Blues to a 3-1 aggregate lead over the La Liga side to secure their place in the final. Saturday’s game against City served as an audition for the highly-anticipated curtain closer and the Blues performed excellently, overcoming a first-half, 1-0 deficit to storm back to a thrilling win. They were helped by Sergio Aguero strangely attempting a panenka penalty that was easily saved by Edouard Mendy but, as Tuchel admitted, you do need a bit of luck on your side.

“We were lucky it did not take too much to come back and stay in the match, because we were lucky not to be 2-0 down,” the manager told Chelsea’s official website after the contest. “It was not a tactical problem or a big drama in the first half, it was three or four minutes, one situation where Andreas slipped and we conceded. That can happen. Then suddenly we were one man down and in this moment we lost a little bit the structure and concede a very harsh decision.

“Could we have lost the game in these four minutes? Yes. Would it have been deserved? No. I am very happy Mendy kept us in the game.

Photo via: @ChelseaFC/Twitter

“At half-time we said let’s continue like it is 0-0 and not lose our heads because of the last three minutes. From there we could go and step up and try and play with courage, have more possession and more possession in their half. This is what the guys did.

“The momentum changed completely with the goal. I could feel everybody were growing in confidence. We played with more and more quality and pressure. We never stopped attacking.

“It’s a huge win, a big reaction and a fantastic team performance in the second half in the context we had one less day to recover, it was away, and we had a big win against Real Madrid. That had a huge impact mentally so that was a fantastic reaction from the boys.”

There’s still a lot left to do but the Londoners are a vastly different band from the one Lampard left in January. Tuchel will have some tough games to navigate through to secure a top-four spot in the Premier League and there’s still the matter of the looming FA Cup final against Leicester City, who Chelsea will also play on the last day of the season in what could be a decider where it pertains to the division's European spots.

As for the Champions League final, the Blues are not favored to beat their English rivals but it would be foolish to count them out based on what we’ve seen these past few months. Tuchel’s influence has built a team no one is looking forward to playing these days. Should they overcome this last hurdle, this season will be one for the ages.