PSG stars overpower Bayern to end Ancelloti’s tenure

3:0

The Carlo Ancelloti era at Bayern came to a sudden conclusion after an underwhelming performance on Wednesday evening. This match was Champions League group stage match that many across the world anticipated once the draw was made back in August, only for it to be notable for the wrong reasons for Bayern. For Paris St. Germain, the match came as an opportunity to show to the world if they are worth mentioning as a club with legitimate hopes of winning the competition with their reloaded squad. With both sides won their opening Champions League fixtures, PSG comfortably took the top spot in the group after a decisive victory over the German champions.

With Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, and Edinson Cavani leading the line for PSG, Bayern were in for a challenge against the home side, compounded by Manuel Neuer’s absence due to injury. Bayern opted to put Mats Hummels on the substitutes bench, along with options like Sebastian Rudy, Franck Ribery, and Arjen Robben. Jerome Boateng wasn’t even fielded in the match day roster, so it doesn’t appear as if Bayern were at full strength with this squad that was chosen. Perhaps Carlo Ancelotti felt that this was the squad that was best for defeating PSG. It’s difficult to know for sure, but there are many questions that could be asked about the selection.

The home side played a line up quite similar to their 2-0 win over Lyon from just over a week ago. The only changes from that team were in defense and midfield, where Marco Verratti replaced Julian Draxler, taking a deeper role in midfield and having Thiago Motta play a holding midfielder, thus changing the shape from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3. Across the back, Marquinhos slotted in for Presnel Kimpembe for this match. Given the importance of this match, Unai Emery made sure that his best team was rested and fit for this match, as shown in his decision to rest Neymar the prior weekend.

Out of Possession

The Parisian side initially started out looking to pressure in their attacking third aiming to stifle Bayern’s build up right from the kickoff and in the opening minutes of the match. During these moments, PSG’s press was conducted in a 4-2-4-0 as a base shape, standing off about 25 yards from to establish their structure and organize themselves. Once PSG moved to press, Verratti or Rabiot (more often the former) would move up to join Cavani to close down Martinez and Sule, with Thiago Motta replacing the player that would go move ahead, morphing into a 4-0-4-2.

In this, Cavani would use his cover shadow to prevent Bayern from having the opportunity to switch the play. When Verratti or Rabiot applied pressure, he would aim to use his cover shadow to prevent passes up the field into Thiago or Vidal, therefore forcing them to play wide or long in the construction of their attack. As Bayern had to options to play into the zones between the midfield and defensive lines in this pressure, Sven Ulreich (who does not possess the ability to play those balls successfully at a high percentage), was resigned to play up the pitch haphazardly or to the outside backs, the only players left free by Emery’s men.

However, after getting on the scoresheet early, PSG became more comfortable with Bayern maintaining possession of the ball and didn’t use their high pressing nearly as much. In the midfield areas, a 4-1-4-1 was favored which restricted the space centrally that Bayern could use for the development of their attack, but the compactness wasn’t extraordinary despite the stability of the team throughout the match. As will be discussed later with Bayern’s attack, most of their wounds when it came to their attack were self-inflicted, as with the inconsistent defensive participation Mbappe and Neymar, valuable spaces would open up as Rabiot or Verratti would shift to compensate for their role, but Ancelotti’s men were unprepared to capitalize on the downsides of Emery’s strategy designed to get the best out of two players worth the GDP of Tonga.

For the Bavarians, their plan was also to prevent the home side from playing into central areas, presumably to deny passing lanes into Cavani and Mbappe, who floated centrally to bolster the attack. Starting from the goal kick, Bayern’s front players would step up in man orientations so Areola would not play the center backs on either side of the penalty area. Vidal and Tolisso would occupy spaces between the respective full back on their side and the closest player, so as to when the ball was played, they could conceivably close down the receiver regardless of who the target was. Given the skill of Alves and Kurzawa, they were favored targets of Areola, and a common way throughout the whole match of solving Bayern’s pressure.

Moving into open play, the away sides 4-3-3 converted into a 4-3-2-1 during the opposition’s possession, with James and Muller taking more central positions closer to the midfield three. Tolisso would also slide to the right side in some instances while Muller would join Lewandowski up high. With James retreating, a 4-4-2 structure would result that was commonly seen in the later stages of the first half. However, no real design of the midfield pressure really took place, as it was common to see one player chasing without support from his teammates and a lack of synchronization between defensive actions in midfield. Thiago Motta, Verratti, and Rabiot were all skillful enough in their ball circulation to bypass any perceived problematic situations. However, the fact that three of them frequently had to congregate together in order to receive the ball is a credit to Bayern’s midfield structure, as progression down the center proved difficult for PSG and most progression from their end was either long passes over the top, or finding the wide options that were not sealed off in Bayern’s defense.

Bayern’s Attacking Approach

After conceding two minutes into the match, Bayern were left in a position where they were chasing the game as a result of being down a goal. With PSG happily deferring possession for periods, Bayern were in a position where they could probe the home side and get themselves back into the game using their talent to their advantage. Unfortunately though, Pep Guardiola is no longer manager, and the positional play seen during his tenure has essentially disappeared, as shown with the poor positioning of Bayern’s midfield and attackers during consolidation and their heavy reliance on crossing and corner kicks as methods of chance creation.

With Ancelloti’s 4-3-2-1, the most puzzling decision was the positioning of the central midfielders. He chose to field Thiago as the pivot with Corentin Tolisso and Arturo Vidal ahead of him, neglecting that the Spaniard is one of the best players in tight spaces in the world and thrives in more advanced areas of the pitch with his dribbling to create passing options and ability to form combinations with those in front of him. Both Vidal and Tolisso resemble different profiles in their play, with the former Lyon man more of a controller than Vidal, who surged forward in attacking whenever he deemed necessary. But with the most skillful player in tight spaces the furthest guy back, right away one could forecast some potential positional problems in how Bayern behaved in possession.

Both Tolisso and Vidal presented incorrect solutions for Bayern when confronted with PSG’s defensive structure. Rather than position themselves higher up the field with the view of potentially freeing up James and Muller and having the center backs be able to play to their feet, they instead dropped deeper in front of Cavani and created a wildly unnecessary superiority of 5v1 when building up their attack. As seen in the graphic below, this created large distances between the lines of the attacking players and the midfielders, leaving little connection between the groups of players. This makes clean progression up the field difficult to say the least, and vastly limits the amount of quality options available to play forward for the man with the ball.

Tolisso in particular was of note of this behavior, as he would often be seen standing next to the center backs as Bayern were circulating the ball. He usually would be oriented more towards the right side, likely acting as cover for Kimmich who would go into higher spaces to connect with Muller, but did not impact much during build up.

With Arturo Vidal as the other player in his line, it was not the best combination to break down a team aiming to keep it compact and force inventive play in order to defeat them. Vidal’s issues with Guardiola’s positional play are well chronicled, as he would often be at the wrong place at the wrong time and have a strong reluctance to play forwards. This in addition to not being as quick and clean on the ball as other members of the Bayern squad, Guardiola on occasion rotated him in wide areas with Phillip Lahm, so that Lahm could move inside during the attack and Vidal would return centrally in defense. This disdain with Vidal’s performance’s on occasion is summed up perfectly by this video from a match against Bayer Leverkusen in 2015, with Guardiola’s reaction the focal point of some of the downsides of fielding Arturo Vidal on the pitch.