I brought Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel together for a six-hour dinner… it was like seeing Plato meet Socrates

FORMER Bayern Munich chief Michael Reschke has recalled the moment when he brought Thomas Tuchel and Pep Guardiola together for dinner – and they talked football for six hours.

The two managers will go head-to-head again tonight as Bayern look to overturn a three-goal deficit in the Champions League.

GettyTuchel managed German club Mainz for five years before moving to Dortmund in 2015[/caption]

PAPep Guardiola has enjoyed some epic tactical duels with Thomas Tuchel over the years[/caption]

But when the pair are not crossing swords in the dugout they can get very deep in conversation about the beautiful game.

When he was Bayern technical director, Reschke was set to have dinner with Tuchel who was then the up-and-coming manager of Mainz.

He bumped into Guardiola on his way to the meeting and the Spaniard, who was Bayern boss at the time, requested to come along.

Reschke tells the Mail: “You can imagine for someone who loves football, it was an unbelievable moment.

“We philosophised about tactics, the game in general and while I was mainly listening, I am certain there have been very few conversations of this level. It was like Plato coming to meet Socrates.

“We had a brief ‘Hi, how’s the family? Good? Great … Let’s talk football.’ We were there for six hours.

“They both have a photographic memory about games from years before. It’s phenomenal. Not just about one moment but how it unfolded, who passed to who, what it led to and why. Thomas was alive with questions.”

Reschke adds that Tuchel was particularly interested in the infamous Chelsea v Barcelona Champions League game in 2009 when a late Andreas Iniesta goal took Guardiola’s side to the final.

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The technical director said that the two managers “swim in football like fish in an aquarium.”

Tuchel gave Guardiola plenty of problems when he was Chelsea boss with the German masterminding three wins over Man City in the final six weeks of the 2020-21 season.

This included victories in the league, the FA semi-final and the Champions League final.

But it was Guardiola who was celebrating last week as City pulled apart the German champions in the first leg of their European clash last week.