Raheem Sterling made his first appearance in a Chelsea shirt in the Blues’ pre-season penalty shootout defeat to Charlotte on Wednesday night.
Christian Pulisic had put the Blues in front before Thomas Tuchel changed his entire outfield line-up for the second half, heralding the introduction of £47.5million signing Sterling.
The new winger could not help Chelsea add to their lead before a late penalty from Daniel Rios earned the MLS side a shootout to decide the friendly victor.
Conor Gallagher was the only player to miss, with a failed panenka attempt, to secure Charlotte the honours.
Boss Tuchel said afterwards: “In general I would say we played a good first half but unfortunately only for 80 metres of the pitch.
“The last 20 metres were not good enough, even in the first half. We found a lot of spaces to accelerate and to penetrate the box but we struggled with our decision-making and precision in the last 20 metres.
“It was simply not good enough for the effort and quality we showed in the first 80 metres of the pitch. The amount of space we had and the amount of attacks we created, there were simply not enough clear chances or deliveries in the last 20 metres.
“We played a very good match in all the other aspects but in the second half, it took us about half an hour to show some quality and that was maybe for 10 minutes, so not good at all - not offensively, not structure-wise, not in effort or the hunger to be the dominant team.”
Check out the best images from the match with our gallery above!
