Bayern München arrived in Manchester with a full UEFA Champions League card this season. He returned home with the weight of a 3-0 draw following a thrilling quarter-final first leg once morest Manchester City.
In this analysis provided by FedEx, the UEFA Technical Observers Panel assesses the main tactical features of Tuesday’s game.
Systems
Man City
Pep Guardiola’s men lined up a 4-4-2 in possession, with a back line made up of four centre-backs. When they had the ball it turned into a 3-2-5, with Stones (5) playing in midfield, sometimes ahead of Rodri (16) who came down to help build play.
Bayern
Bayern were playing in a 4-2-3-1 formation and one of the key players identified by the match observer was Joshua Kimmich (6), who went low to create a 3v2 in the initial build-up phase and also made showing great intelligence in finding spaces behind City’s back.
Further up the pitch, Thomas Müller (25) started on the bench for the first time under Thomas Tuchel. The new Bayern coach, for his fourth game in charge of the team, opted for the speed of Musiala (42) and Serge Gnabry (7) in attack.
What we observed
The first feature highlighted in the video analysis concerns Bayern’s success in cracking City’s pressing in the first half. City are a team looking to press high. Here, City have Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne putting pressure on centre-backs, Ιlkay Gündoğan and Rodri closing in on Bayern pivots and Bernardo and Grealish harassing full-backs. However, there is space to exploit between this first line of pressing and the defensive line behind. Indeed, the video shows Tuchel signaling Benjamin Pavard to enter this same area when Sommer chooses him and a single pass from the goalkeeper eliminates half of the City team.
The second clip offers another example in which City don’t get close enough to Upamecano and the centre-back is able to break the pressure with a forward pass for Gnabry.
Bayern also posed problems for City thanks to their ability to find players between their lines. Clips 3 and 4 illustrate the hosts’ struggles with their midfield pressure and, in this regard, Musiala proved particularly dangerous.
For UEFA’s analysis unit, Guardiola’s response to Bayern’s problems with City was highly significant and key to City’s overall victory as he adjusted his pressing in the second half. time, when the German team defended lower.
Three examples of this can be seen in the video footage above, the first showing Bernardo pressing Mathijs de Ligt and Grealish doing the same with Upamecano. This means City place four players in a trapdoor form.
This means City are in a better position to block passes, and in the second extract we see Upamecano attempt a long pass to the flank. City win the ball and end up creating a chance through Nathan Aké. The third sequence is the best example with Bernardo’s goal, which comes following Grealish pressed Upamecano, who, once more blocked in the corridors, turns inside and loses the ball.
The final feature of Tuesday’s game highlighted by UEFA’s unit of analysis was City’s defensive excellence. Bayern had scored in 39 of their last 40 Champions League games before arriving in Manchester, but came up once morest a brilliantly disciplined and highly committed City back line. This last series of clips begins with a magnificent counter by Rúben Dias in front of Musiala. Overall, Dias had more interceptions (three) than any other player in the quarterfinals this week and won six of his seven games.
The second example shows Player of the Match Stones stepping in front of Leroy Sané to prevent the Bayern winger from seeing the goal. While stopped, Sané has been very active for Bayern on his return to his former club and has had the most shots on goal (four out of five) of any player this week, including two attempts in the second half well stopped by Ederson.
Finally, Aké distinguished himself with a fine defensive action which deprived Coman of an opportunity by sprinting and seeing the danger to intercept a cross from Müller intended for the French striker from Bayern.
