Roma’s 1-7 home loss in the Champions League group stage fixture saw dominance at its best but surely Guardiola doesn’t put this win down to just having a good day. From Roma’s perspective, their high pressing, aggressive, high energy defending would cause trouble to most other teams. But what made the difference when this was employed against Bayern?

A tactical set-up from the former Barcelona coach saw Bayern set up in an asymmetrical fashion. This resulted in a man advantage down one flank. When Roma looked to level the numbers, an unmarked player would produce an attacking outlet for the German side. This may be a little hard to swallow verbally. The following video by Krzysztof Sierocki shows how the Bundesliga champions executed this tactic at the Stadio Olimpico to take apart the home team and potentially inspire future Roma opponents.

Bayern asymetric play, key to destroy Roma from Krzysztof Sierocki on Vimeo.