Match date: 30 April 2013

Real Madrid were thoroughly outplayed in the first leg of this tie, but were able to get an away goal and have the advantage of playing at home for the second leg. Jose Mourinho made a few changes to the side that suffered the heavy defeat in Germany with Essien coming back into side, allowing Ramos to go back to centre back and allow Mourinho to drop Pepe.

Angel Di Maria also started, with Özil back in the central role in the 3 behind Higuain, with Modrić, retaining his spot albiet in a different role, and Alonso just behind him, meaning Khedira dropped to the bench. Unlike the first leg when Özil and Ronaldo were on the wings, making Real look more like a 4-3-3 than their more usual 4-2-3-1, the inclusion of Di Maria made Real play that 4-2-3-1, with Modrić and Alonso has the holding midfield duo.

Jurgen Klopp opted to put out the same Dortmund XI that dealt with Real in the first leg, though the personnel was slightly altered as Götze picked up an injury early on.

Real Start Well

Madrid started the game very well, creating several chances, notably through Higuain and Özil, but they couldn’t finish. Real looked to attack down the right hand side of their attack as Di Maria found space and Özil naturally drifting towards the right touch line and it was Özil that was making a significant impact in the opening quarter hour of play.

Neither Bender or Gündoğan were close to the back four of Dortmund and it allowed Özil to find the space between Dortmund’s midfield and back four quite easily and allowed him to run in behind when Higuain dropped deep to pick up the ball as he did when he had his early chance that he dragged wide. Rather than track Özil, Bender and Gündoğan were trying to play as Dortmund do and press, but the inclusion of Modrić next to Alonso gave Real a very different midfield than that of an Alonso and Khedira midfield.

Alonso and Modrić

The combination of Alonso and Modrić caused problems for Dortmund’s midfield and their ability to press. Usually Real play with either Modrić or Alonso partnered with Khedira, which gives them a deep-lying playmaker in either Alonso or Modrić and a more dynamic midfielder in Khedira, but rather than include Khedira, Mourinho opted for both Modrić and Alonso to give Real more creativity, perhaps anticipating that Real would need more creativity in central midfield to open up Dortmund if they sat back.

In the opening minutes, Dortmund were trying to press and it opened sapce for Özil to get into, but there was also much more focus on trying to keep Alonso off the ball than Modrić and you could see Götze  when he was on the pitch, was always trying to find Alonso and it worked to an extent as Alonso had much less of an impact on the match than he did in the previous leg, attempting less passes, receiving the ball less, and attempted less passes into the attacking third for Real than he completed in the first leg.

However, with Modrić in rather than Khedira, it meant Alonso could play more of a holding role, which positionally, he does very well, and allow Modrić to take more responsibility in the playmaking role and he did. Modrić received just under twice the amount of passes that Alonso did and attempted 30 more passes, completing 28 of his 32 attempted passes into the final third. He was also able to get away from Dortmund players, being successful in 5 of his 6 take-ons, compared to Ronaldo and Özil who were successful in just 3 of their 12 attempts combined.

The combination of Alonso and Modrić also performed very well defensively and were good at breaking up Dortmund’s counter-attacks, with a lot of credit due to the first line of pressure from Real, which Dortmund had a hard time playing past in the opening 25 minutes of the match. Combined, Alonso and Modrić completed 9 of their 11 tackles, making 7 interceptions, 4 of which were in Dortmund’s half.

Real’s Changes

After a bright opening quarter hour for Real Madrid, the match went into a pattern of Real attacking, Dortmund clearing, trying to make their own chances, with Real then winning the ball back and it going back the other way. Real seemed to be a little out of ideas at times and were almost forced to try to play through the middle as they weren’t able to use the wide areas well, only completing 1 of 20 attempted crosses, with Subotic and especially Hummels, winning their aerial duals and clearing the ball well.

After trying to see if there would be any change from his side after his half time talk, Mourinho waited 12 minutes before bringing on Kaka for Fabio Coentrao and Karim Benzema for Higuain. The change meant that Real went to three at the back and pushed Ronaldo higher up the pitch to partner Benzema.

The changes pushed Dortmund back and they faced significant pressure from Real, who began to spread the play a bit more, with their first goal eventually coming from Ozil coming in off the right to play a ball on the floor to the near post for Benzema to tap in. The further Real pushed Dortmund back though, they less threatening Real became. They continued to try to put crosses into the box, but Hummels and Subotic dealt with them easily.

What Real lacked was the space that they needed to play direct balls or counter-attacking football, which is what they do when they are at their best. Mourinho has said in the past that he sees beauty in the way a team like his Real can use the space on counter attacks for open up defenses. Without it though, Real were a bit out of their element, trying to penetrate without space to run into with Dortmund narrow and packed.

Conclusion

Ramos’ goal made for an intense ending, but Dortmund were able to hold on to get through to the final.

Neither team had great games in both legs of the tie with Dortmund’s home performance enough to see them through to the final, but the second leg tie could have been much more interesting if the both team’s could have finished their chances. Real had two very good chances through Higuain and Özil in the opening quarter hour to put Real up and Lewandowski and Gündoğan, even more so, had chances to get Dortmund a crucial away goal.

Real Madrid’s 10th European Cup still eludes them and Mourinho’s tenure at the Spanish club might be coming to an end, but credit should be to Jurgen Klopp and Dortmund who, with this loss, have suffered just their first defeat in their Champions League campaign and will be looking forward to the final where they will have to take their chance as their team may look significantly different next year.