Match date: 21 October 2014

With Manchester City conceding to CSKA Moscow in the latter stages of the earlier match, Roma came into the match second in the group, two points ahead of the English side, who they drew in the last match day. Rudi Garcia kept Roma in their usual 4-3-3.

Pep Guardiola returned to Roma for the first time since he went on loan to the Italian club late in his playing career. This time, he comes as a successful manager, with Bayern coming into the match at the top of the group having beaten both Manchester City and CSKA Moscow in 1-0 matches. Guardiola set Bayern Munich out in a 3-5-2.

4-3-3 v 3-5-2, Midfield Battle

As you can see in the above picture, Bayern Munich played in a 3-5-2ish system, but it was a side with a good amount of fluidity, which aided in their dominance of the game. Roma continued in their usual 4-3-3, which looked a lot like a 4-6-0 at times, with Totti dropping deep into midfield.

Roma started the match trying to press the German side and make it difficult for them to play out of the back, but Bayern’s movement off the ball (though at times visibly disappointing Guardiola) and their positional fluidity soon made it easy for Bayern to play around Roma’s attempts to press. Such was Bayern’s dominance in the first half that following Bayern’s first goal, the next chance that Roma had to press Bayern deep inside their own half came when the scoreline read 5-0 in the 42nd minute of the game. Early on though, Bayern’s best play past Roma’s press was when Alaba and Bernat would take on a Roma player, breaking the first line of pressure and then playing into an advanced player. After the opening stages, however, Bayern’s midfield movement began to improve and they found it easier to play.

With a simple description of a 4-3-3 v 3-5-2, one would think that both sides had three players in the centre area of the pitch, so the way to win that area would be down to the quality of players. So much of Bayern’s play made it look like a 3-2-3-2 and even then, the play was fluid. Alaba often moved into midfield when Bayern had possession of the ball, which allowed them to have greater numbers in that zone. Bayern were also able to overload the centre because of Totti’s tendency to drop into midfield. This allowed Boateng, Benatia, and Alaba to push their line higher up the field, squeezing the pitch, allowing Bayern to press higher, and allowing them to have numbers up in the midfield. Below, you can see Totti beginning to drop into the space that will allow Bayern’s backs to push further forward.

Alonso and Lahm were able to dictate the tempo of play, helped by the fact that Bayern were able to squeeze the pitch and Alaba was able to play to the left of Alonso and give Bayern numbers up in the centre of the park and the ‘centre back’ got very high up the pitch at multiple times during the first half.

Guardiola experimented with Alaba’s fluid movement from centre back earlier in the season against Manchester City and while it didn’t have the same influence on the match as it did in this one, the principle behind such movement is to keep opponents unable to man mark and to always create numbers up situations. Alaba wasn’t the only issue of movement into the centre of the pitch, as we’ll see blow.

Robben as a Wingback

The formational issues for Roma didn’t stop with the midfield battle and Alaba stepping into that area. Perhaps the most influential tactical decision that Guardiola made was to play Robben as the right wing back in the 3-5-2. He excelled in the role. Often criticised earlier in his career to lacking defensive responsibility, Robben supported Benatia on the right almost as well as he got forward.

There were possible reasons to play Robben here instead of someone like Müller, who always shows a high work rate, or someone like Rafinha, who would be very suitable as a wing back. The first would be that by playing a left footed player in a right sided position, especially someone like Robben, who is very one footed, it is their natural movement to come inside. This allowed, as mentioned in the above section, Bayern to create another numbers up opportunity, meaning at times the German side would have Alaba, Lahm, Alonso, Robben, Götze, and even one of either Lewandowski or Müller outnumbering Roma’s midfield three, even with Totti making it four. It also allowed Lahm to shift to the right wing back role at times, though he largely stayed in the half space and looked to attack that area of the pitch.

The second would be Robben’s ability to attack space from deep positions. The best dribblers of the ball can certainly dribble in tight spaces, but when they have the ability to attack defenders from a distance, with enough space to get to top speed with the ball, they are even better and Robben showed this against Roma. With the Italian side in a 4-3-3, it meant that Robben was always going to be isolated against Ashley Cole, with Gervinho and Iturbe struggling to help their full backs, especially on quick counter attacks. This granted Robben the huge space, mentioned above, where he was able to dribble in 1v1 opportunities against Cole. Below, you’ll see the amount of space Robben was able to get in a wing back position. This is just before his second goal.

The Dutchman took full advantage of the position that Pep placed him. Both his goals were perfect examples of his evening. The first goal, he found himself in a 1v1 with Cole, quickly shifted the ball, and scored a brilliant goal. His second goal showed the amount of space he was able to get into and the spaces that it allowed him to attack that he would not have otherwise had.

Götze’s Space

Early one, it looked like the most dangerous part of Bayern’s play was going to be the amount of space in between Roma’s back four and their midfield. De Rossi was meant to be the holding midfielder, patrolling that zone of the pitch, but Mario Götze, in particular, was able to find pockets of space in that area of the pitch that allowed him to easily receive the ball on the half turn and dribble at the Roma back four. His goal, Bayern Munich’s second, was a perfect example of the space that Roma conceded. Götze picked up the ball, ran at the back four, engaging both De Rossi and Manolas. He then played the ball into Müller, continued his run, receiving the ball back from Müller, and finished at the near post.

The young German, who played behind Müller and Lewandowski for much of their time on the pitch, was able to get on the ball in these spaces far too often. For Robben’s second goal, Götze ran beyond this space, allowing Lewandowski to drop into it, which allowed the Polish international to dribble at Roma and play Robben in.

Roma Going Forward

Roma’s best chances in both halves came through Gervinho. The Ivorian has returned to his best form during the last two years under Rudi Garcia and was certainly Roma’s liveliest player on the field. In the first half, he was in a wide position, often stuck between tracking back to support the defensive efforts of his team and wanting to be the vertical outlet and Roma’s usage of him was as mixed as that in the first half.

At the start of the second half, however, Garcia took Totti off, who had been dropping too deep for Roma during the first half, thus allowing Bayern’s back three to push forward and not giving Roma a good outlet and moved Gervinho to the central role. Here, the Ivorian played well for the Italian side as he ran off the ball side, but also pushed Bayern’s back three a little deeper with his pace. He was now Roma’s out ball and they looked to play long balls behind the Bayern back line for him to run on to and he did well getting on the end of them and hit the post on one such occasion.

Gervinho also scored and really should have had another, but Neuer came up with an excellent save to deny him. Unfortunately for Roma, Rudi Garcia’s change came too late in the match.

Conclusion

An excellent game for Bayern Munich and Pep Guardiola who have conceded just one goal in their group and sit at the top with nine points from three matches. Guardiola’s small changes were masterful and allowed Bayern to have their dominance over Roma.

Roma were completely played off the field as the scoreline suggests. Even when it was 5-1 and Bayern looked like they were simply going to control the ball and see the match off, the Germans scored two more goals. The only positive for Roma is that Manchester City drew earlier in the day, allowing Roma to stay second in the group.

The two sides meet again on the next match day, in Germany.