Match date: 23 February 2016

The last time these two sides met in the Champions League, Bayern Munich won 2-0 in both legs and went on to win the competition. Three years on, the two sides meet again with Juventus at the top of Serie A and a year on from their finals appearance, while Bayern Munich have dominated Bundesliga under Guardiola, but have failed to reach the heights of three years ago in the Champions League.

Allegri decided to set his side out in a 4-4-2, with a similar line up to their last big match against Napoli in Serie A, except that Mario Mandzukic returned to the starting XI with Morata dropping to the bench.

Guardiola, with a number of centre backs out injured, opted for David Alaba and Joshua Kimmich at the back in what was very much a 3-3-4 for large periods of the match.

Bayern’s Positioning

A very interesting match from Guardiola’s Bayern Munich and one that saw them dominate the match for the opening hour. As mentioned above, Bayern Munich looked like a 3-3-4 for much of that sixty minutes, which came about through the movements of Vidal, Lahm, and Bernat.

Vidal’s performance on the night was very good and he played in a Busquets-like role, as he dictated the tempo for Bayern Munich and dropped in between Kimmich and Alaba both in and out of possession. His defensive reading of the game was not as superb as Busquets was, but his work rate and mobility allowed him to cover Alaba and Kimmich well, while stepping to midfield to win balls as well. For much of the game, against Juventus’ 4-4-2, he gave Bayern an extra man at the back. On the ball, he kept it moving and was less pensive that Xabi Alonso would have been in that deep-lying role, which allowed for Bayern’s ball circulation to be that little bit quicker.

Perhaps more interesting that Vidal’s positioning, however, was that of Philipp Lahm’s and Juan Bernat’s. When the team sheets were announced, one would generally expect that these two would have played as more traditional full backs. However, this was not the case and throughout the match, Lahm and Bernat would position themselves in the half space of their respective side rather than provide width in each phase of possession. This allowed for many things to happen around them, including Bayern maintaining a central overload, 1v1s in the wide areas for wide players, and with certain movements, overloads in the wide areas.

With Lahm positioned centrally, it forced Paul Pogba to come inside as well, which allowed Robben to get into 1v1s against Patrice Evra throughout the match. This happened on the left as well, with Costa isolated against Lichtsteiner. While Robben did score a goal and looked good at times, it could be argued that neither Costa or Robben had a huge influence on the match despite Guardiola making efforts to allow them to find isolated moments. Lahm’s positioning also allowed Vidal to play a bit deeper, to help Alaba and Kimmich in case of Juventus’ counter attacks, as the Bayern captain acted as a holding midfielder, but also made a few good runs through the half space, including one which led to a chance that should have seen Müller score. Notice Lahm’s positioning below.

On the other side, however, Bernat played much higher up the field, while still in the half space, and allowed Thiago to find space and help Vidal keep the ball moving quickly. This also kept Cuadrado much deeper, which nullified his pace on Juventus’ counter attacks. You can in fact see Bernat in a slightly higher position than Thiago in the screen capture above. Costa’s starting position was always a bit higher than Robben’s as well, which meant that Bernat had to be closer to allow him more support and form a triangle with Lewandowski. Lahm could play deeper in the right half space because Robben started deeper, which also allowed Müller to drift out wide throughout the match. Notice the triangle formed by Müller, Lahm, and Robben below and Müller’s movement into a wide position.

Juventus’s Low Block

Allegri set his side out with the intention of not conceding at home, and thus defended in a low block for much of the match. In their 4-4-2, Mandzukic and Dybala always had Kimmich, Vidal, Alaba, and sometimes Lahm in front of them and allowed those players to keep the ball rather than looking to press to high. Marchisio and Khedira stayed centrally in midfield, rarely moving out of their shape, while Pogba and Cuadrado were a bit more susceptible to the movements of Bernat and Lahm from out wide to central areas. Below you can see an example of Juventus in their low block, 4-4-2. Also notice the Bayern player’s positions based on what was mentioned in the section before.

The midfield kept stayed compact horizontally to one another and vertically to the Juventus back four. Marchisio was usually a bit deeper than Khedira, who is arguably a bit better at pressing a ball carrier, and took away space for Müller and Lewandowski to check into the get the ball into feet from Thiago, Lahm, and Vidal. Instead Juventus forced the ball to move out wide before it was to get to the Bayern Munich central pairing and Juventus were able to deal with most of the crosses put into the area.

At times Juventus did try to press, but it was only when they had either lost the ball high up the pitch and Bayern played the ball back to Neuer. This allowed Juventus to press with the knowledge that even if they forced a long ball, it was mostly going to be won by one of their teammates. The issue here for Juventus was that, while they did force Neuer to play long at times, it was often far too easy for Bayern to play past the press of Dybala and Mandzukic, meaning one of the midfielders was then forced to engage the ball carrier and was thus pulled out of shape.

Allegri’s Changes

Allegri was forced to bring on Hernandes for Marchisio at half time due to an injury to the Italian. This added a bit more creativity to the Juventus midfield, while maintaining discipline. The Brazilian midfielder was certainly tidy in possession despite Juventus not seeing much of the ball.

Allegri’s tactical changes came after Robben scored Bayern’s second goal, giving them a 2-0 aggregate score and two away goals. Each line of the 4-4-2 played higher up the pitch, allowed Juventus to put more pressure on Bayern and make it harder for the away side to build out of the back and control the game as they had been doing for roughly the first hour. Allegri brought on Sturaro for Khedira and he played a bit closer to Hernandes than Khedira had been, allowing the duo to move the ball quicker and sustain possession for Juventus a bit longer which allowed Cuadrado and Pogba to move higher and a bit narrower in attack.

Allegri’s last change was to bring on Morata for Dybala which meant that Juventus had a strike partnership of Mandzukic and Morata, both of whom are over six feet, a bit taller than both Alaba and Vidal and significantly taller than Kimmich. This allowed Juventus a more physical and aerial approach, which is ultimately how they scored the equaliser as Morata won a defender over Lahm, directing it into the path of Sturaro in the Bayern Munich penalty area.

Conclusion

Guardiola and Bayern Munich put on a fantastic display of football in the opening hour of the match and it resulted in two goals and could/should have been at least one more. However, after the second goal, it seemed that Allegri and the Juventus thought to themselves that the result could not get much worse and so they engaged Bayern Munich much higher up the field, forced errors for the first goal, and made adjustments to help get a second goal.

Despite coming back and drawing the match, Juventus still have a huge amount of work to do if they are to qualify. Guardiola has a less-than-usually-invincible record in the away legs of Champions League matches, in both the group stages and knockout stages, but it usually very good in home matches and will undoubtedly have his team prepared. It will be interesting to see how Allegri sets his team out. Does he look to try to win 1-0 by sitting in a low block again and get a goal on a counter attack? Or does he try to engage Bayern Munich, with or without the ball, higher up the pitch?