Again the focus is on Bayern and as great as they may be, I will be looking to stretch more broadly, but I just wanted to test this new camera angle out and who better to analyse than the positional play of a Guardiola team?

The centre is vital to success in the majority of sports, and perhaps most of all chess – which not coincidentally is one that Pep has great intrigue in as he has befriended the likes of Kasparov amongst the number of people from different sports which he has found inspiration from.

In chess, through controlling the centre you give yourself the best possible access to the board and can reach the entirety of the width. A core idea is to maximise the potential spaces in which your pieces can move into – you need your queen in a central position where it has 360′ of potential movement as opposed to the side which is halved to just 180′.

Theories such as this one can be applied almost seamlessly to football – for example you want your player with the best passing range (playmaker) to be central so they can utilise this to the maximum and access more areas of the pitch. It serves as an explanation as to why the centre is the most important area on the football pitch – a team often wins a game by controlling one of two things; the space or the ball (and the best do both) but very rarely has a team won games when not controlling the centre of the pitch.

In this article I will be looking at how Bayern managed to maintain a relatively high degree of control over the centre of the pitch despite Hoffenheim’s efforts to curtail this, starting with a player from the flanks.

Rafinha

Rafinha’s role became of great importance for this game in particular as he held the role of an inverted full-back given that Robben was often occupying the touchline.

By coming inside he added an extra number to help with the midfield battle and often created overloads in cooperation with Muller, Gotze and Alonso to ensure Bayern could play centrally with less risk of losing the ball in threatening areas.

In this example, Rafinha opens up the passing lane intelligently for Muller who initially moves onto the same vertical line as the Brazilian. The right-back then moves wide which creates another passing option and drags the defender with him (though he has to leave one of the players free).

A simple vertical pass can then be played to Muller where the tempo increases and the attack really begins.

Rafinha would also have a direct influence in the game by acting as the free man, especially when Bayern had dragged Hoffenheim out to the opposite flank. His movement inside was often unmarked as the left opposition forward was occupied with Benatia and this worked well when switching the play as upon receiving the ball he can either support centrally or combine with Robben on the touchline because of his positioning in the half space.

1st Line in Construction of Play

The makeup of Bayern’s 1st line in the initial phase of possession was quite different to what is usually seen as they build the play. Whilst Rafinha played as an inverted full-back, during the 1st phase of possession Bernat acted as the left centre-back which made Boateng the central player of the three and effectively fulfilling Alonso’s role.

As a result the Spaniard stayed in the 2nd line and, alongside Rafinha added the extra numbers necessary to dominate and circulate the ball through the centre of the pitch.

Alonso in the 2nd line with Rafinha whilst Boateng was central of the 3 and Bernat took up LCB allowed Bayern to have numerical superiority in the centre. This could then be heightened if Ribéry or Robben came inside or if Lewa decided to drop and leave the defensive line redundant.

The overloads which were made possible by the shape of the foundation 3-2 shape – in the below example a 3v1 is created in the 10 space as 2 of Hoffenheim’s midfielders are occupied by Rafinha and Alonso when they wouldn’t usually take up the positions they did in the game.

These situations then allowed the free man to start the attack against Hoffenheim’s defensive line, which was often Muller who dropped intelligently as usual into pockets of space in midfield.

Issues with Hoffenheim’s Strategy

TSG Hoffenheim’s gameplan was clear as they lined up against Bayern last weekend in a 4-1-2-1-2 system centered around man-marking and high pressing in the Bavarian 1st phase of possession.

Immediately one issue with the Hoffenheim strategy was the ease at which Guardiola’smen could manipulate the shape in order to create space and the free man through rather simple movement off of the ball. Players such as Gotze, Muller and Rafinha could become free quite easily as they were given more freedom in their positioning.

When watching an Ernst Happell quote came to mind “If you mark man-to-man, you’re sending out 11 donkeys”.

For periods of the game, the away side were successful in their pressing and especially in the 1st phase they stopped Bayern from controlling the ball safely, winning the ball in the final third on a number of occasions however these issues were always going to arise with the system they set out in.

Hoffenheim’s pressing with the narrowness in midfield made it difficult for the Bavarian development early on.

Other Notes

In Bayern’s phase 3 there was an emphasis on finding Gotze in space and the great 1st goal was a prime example of this. Against Hoffenheim’s man-marking, the other Bayern midfielders moved out of the central positions to free up space in which the World Cup winner eased into to with the time and space to score from 30 yards.

Bayern’s positional play was good throughout the game and the players ahead of the ball frequently found good positions which gave options to attack most spaces. It was rare that two or more players would occupy the same lines especially vertically as shown in the first diagram where the 10 space is loaded with players in anticipation of a vertical pass through one of the numerous passing lanes.

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