Match date: 23 April 2013

The first match of the 2013 Champions League semi finals featuring two teams that have both featured in two of the last four finals, but haven’t played one another. Barcelona have won both of their appearances, both being against Manchester United, whereas Bayern Munich have lost both of theirs, one being to Chelsea and one to Inter Milan.

There were a number of subplots to the match. One being that Barcelona represent Pep Guardiola’s past and Bayern Munich represent his future, but, based on this season, it also represents the highs and lows of two European giants. Barcelona haven’t reached their heights this season despite all but winning La Liga, and Bayern Munich have been dominating their domestic competitions and made Juventus look incredibly outclassed last round.

Opening Five Minutes

Just in the opening minutes, the match showed just about how it would go forward. Barcelona kept the ball well, but weren’t able to get very high up the pitch with Bartra and Pique having to settle with passing between themselves. Then Bayern got on the ball and were quick and much more direct than Barcelona.

It was a good snippet of the match and set the tone as Barcelona 66% possession, attempting twice as many passes as Bayern Munich, but the Bavarians had 15 attempts on goal compared to just 4 from Barcelona as well as 13 chances created compared to Barcelona’s 4.

Bayern Without the Ball

For their incredibly impressive offensive performance, Bayern Munich were fantastic without the ball. Without Toni Kroos, they were always going to struggle to compete in the middle in terms of keeping the ball and without Mario Mandzukic, they lost that energy pressing on the centre backs, so rather than press Pique and Bartra, Bayern let them have the ball and tracked and pressed the midfield trio of Iniesta, Xavi, and Busquets.

Usually teams that play Barcelona have a hard time tracking Busquets, due to either a lack of defensive work rate by a forward or number 10 to drop on Busquets or a lack of pressing as a unit. Bayern did both very well. When they were without the ball, both Muller and Gomez would drop in the areas where Busquets was.

Busquets received the ball 57 times, which might seem like a lot for any other team, but he’s incredibly important for Barcelona in terms of getting the ball from the centre backs and getting the ball to Iniesta and Xavi and switching play from side to side, so his time on the ball is always a good indicator of how Barcelona are playing. In Barcelona’s 4-0 win against AC Milan earlier in their Champions League campaign, Busquets received the ball 93 times. His lack of received passes was down to Muller and Gomez’s presence in that area, but even when he got the ball, he wasn’t able to get the ball forward well.

Bayern were less willing to press Xavi and Iniesta high up the pitch when they got the ball, both getting on the ball significantly more than Busquets, albiet deeper than they would like. This was due to a few things, the first being that Xavi and Iniesta can work their way out of tighter areas much easier, which Xavi did well against Schweinsteiger in the opening minutes with an absolutely brilliant touch. The second being that with the ball not being as high up the pitch as it would with Busquets the risk of pressing on Xavi and Iniesta was outweighed by the reward and so Bayern were more willing to get into a good defensive shape. Both Javi Martinez and Schweinsteiger picked their moments really well in terms of when to press and when to drop off and were physical, tackled well, and intercepted well.

(Orange ‘X’ is a successful tackle, Purple ‘X’ is an unsuccessful tackle. Green diamonds are interceptions, black triangles are fouls committed. Orange ‘O’ is a successful clearance, Purple ‘O’ is a unsuccessful clearance. Blue lines are pass backs to goalkeeper.)

In the wide areas, Bayern were again very disciplined. Ribery has certainly added defensive duties to his game over the last season, and despite giving Alves too much space to run into at times, his tracking back was well done, as was Arjen Robben’s on the other side. The Dutchman made it a little harder for Alba to get forward and when the left back did get forward, Robben would track him well and was successful in all four of his tackles in the match.

Bayern Going Forward

Barcelona have two glaring weaknesses, set pieces and counter attacks. Bayern exposed both well. Their first two goals came from Bayern winning a corner and the resulting phase of play, with both assists being headers, one directly from the corner and one from a cross back in by Robben. In terms of defending the aerial threat that Bayern had on set pieces with Gomez, Dante, Boateng, Martinez, and Muller, Barcelona lost all four of the aerial duals that occurred in their penalty area, with two of them resulting in goals.

Then there were the other two goals, the result of counter attacks. Being 2-0 down, Barcelona had to continue to try to get numbers forward and hope to get an away goal to keep them in the tie, but as they pushed more players forward, it leaves them exposed at the back. Alba and Alves are both attack-minded full backs and always look to get forward, but with 2-0 lead, Ribery and Robben were less concerned about tracking Alba and Alves’ runs and could look to wait for opportunities to counter in the wide areas, which they used well throughout the night.

The third goal came with Ribery breaking on the right as Alves tried to get back. Ribery played a ball square to Schweinsteiger who was able to play the ball into plenty of space for Robben, with Alba tracking the run of Muller, who intelligently came in from the left to open the space for Robben by dragging Alba inside (and then checked Alba to the ground to give Robben even more space). The fourth goal came on another break, with Schweinsteiger finding Ribery on the right and an overlapping Alaba, with Alves nowhere in frame. Alaba easily got into Barcelona’s penalty area and picked out Muller for a tap in.

Barcelona’s Faults

As stated in the section above, Barcelona exploitable in two areas: set pieces and counter attacks. It has become more of a trend this season and something that needs to be addressed in the summer. They also showed a lack of willingness to continue pressing. A few times early in the match, Bayern were able to get around Barcelona’s initial pressing from the front line, which lacked Messi leading the press, and found that  Barcelona’s midfield weren’t high enough for the pressing to be as effective as it could have been. Under Guardiola, pressing was incredibly important  and the team always pressed as a unit, something that has been lacking this season.

Under Guardiola, they were also more expansive in attack than they have been this season. Scroll up a little bit to see Barcelona’s passing from the match and you can see that the amount of balls played into wide areas as they got closer to Bayern’s goal went down significantly; completing just 5 passes in wide areas beyond the penalty area.

Conclusion

A brilliant display by Bayern Munich on both sides of the ball. They showed how to deal with Barcelona defensively, not sitting back and absorbing pressure, but instead, pressing well and choosing their moments to get their lines in good defensive shape. When on the ball, they looked to play quickly and direct and took their opportunities, exploiting Barcelona’s weaknesses.

Barcelona were clearly not at their best, but they haven’t really been for most of 2013. Messi wasn’t able to get into the game, perhaps because he wasn’t 100%, and consistently found himself having to go out to the right to try to get on the ball as he was squeezed out of the space between the lines. Even when receiving the ball in those areas, he wasn’t as effective as usual and looked to play square balls rather than try to play a penetrative pass or get forward with the ball.