Match date: 4 November 2014

It’s always interesting to see how a top side, as Roma are, react to a huge loss, as Roma suffered against Bayern Munich in their last Champions League match. The 7-1 defeat carried over into Serie A, with Roma drawing Sampdoria and losing to Napoli in two of their last three matches.

Bayern Munich, however, have continued to win. They beat Dortmund 2-1 in Bundesliga at the weekend, maintaining their lead in the domestic league and have nine points in their Champions League group coming into this match.

Guardiola made two changes to the side that beat Roma in the last matchup, bringing Rafinha in for Robben and Ribery in for Müller, but continued (at least for a bit) with the 3-3-3-1 that has brought Bayern success so far this season.

Rudi Garcia made several changes to the side that lost badly to Bayern last time out, bringing in Skorupski, Holebas, Keita, Destro, and Florenzi, while maintaining a 4-3-3.

Alonso Marked, Alaba Moves

At this point, as we’ve seen in Bayern’s match against Dortmund, one of the best ways to try to stop Bayern Munich from dominating the match is for the opposition to mark Xabi Alonso and deny him from getting on the ball. The German side have enough quality to still dominate games, especially with Jerome Boateng being one of the best passers of the ball at the centre back position. Typically, if Alonso is marked out of the game, then Boateng sees more of the ball. While they are still able to keep the ball and dominate the possession in a match, when Alonso is marked tightly, Bayern’s play is a bit more labour and is certainly less expansive.

One of the things that Roma did not do in the first match between these two in the Champions League was actively mark Alonso. Some of this had to do with how quickly Bayern Munich were able to play past any attempts to press from Roma and the lack of ability for Totti to keep up with Alonso’s ability to find space. However, in this match, Garcia clearly told his front three that they had to make sure to keep Alonso from getting on the ball. Iturbe, Destro, and Florenzi all took turns marking Alonso, denying him chances on the ball. Typically, it was the non-ball side attacker that found Alonso. Below, you can see Iturbe on the Spaniard.

It worked relatively well for Roma as well. Bayern certainly didn’t move the ball as freely as they had in the previous match. Along with Roma’s tight marking, sometimes Alonso found himself too close to the Bayern Munich back three, who pushed up to the halfway line when in possession of the ball. In a way, this took away Alonso’s space and forced him to receive with his back to the Roma goal rather than drop into space and have time to receive facing the space he would be able to play into. As you can see below, Alonso completed/attempted significantly less passes in this match compared to the 7-1 win. It also shows, as mentioned earlier, that Alonso was forced to move all around the pitch to get away from his markers and find space.

While Alonso was squeezed out of space, Alaba, who was one of the three Bayern Munich centre backs, ventured out of the back three. The Austrian did this in the last match against Roma, but comparatively, he stayed very disciplined in his position in Bayern’s weekend match against Dortmund. Alonso was marked in that match as well, but Dortmund are much more capable on counter attacks than Roma, and against Roma, it was important that Bayern maintain their numbers in midfield.

Alaba’s movement forward came in stages, as it did in the last match against Roma. He started picking his moments to get into midfield early on and at those times Bayern maintained their 3-3-3-1 shape by having Alonso or, more often, Lahm moving into the back three. Alaba’s movement forward, as well as his passing and dribbling ability, helped Bayern break the lines of Roma, which were much more compact than the last match.

As the first half went on, and for all of the second half, Bayern were very much in a 4-3-3, with a midfield three of Alonso, Lahm, and Alaba. The fluidity between the two different formations was seamless and moving Alaba into midfield allowed his dynamism to show, especially for the opening goal when he saw the space open up on the left after Ribery came infield to receive the ball and Lewandowski ran inside, taking away the closest defender. Alaba’s run to the space and vision to pick out the pull back to Ribery showed the type of energy from midfield can help Bayern open teams up when playing quick on transitions.

Roma’s Defensive Efforts

There was a clear difference between Roma’s defensive setup from the first and second match. The 7-1 loss saw a Roma side that was incredibly open. One of major changes for Roma was Garcia’s decision to include Keita in the starting XI rather than Pjanic. Pjanic is a terrific footballer and is decent in the tackle when his side are in control of matches, but Keita’s positioning was notable in breaking up some moves by Bayern. He and De Rossi did well in remaining compact in front of the back four while Nainggolan pushed forward a bit more to try to break play up. There was much less space for the likes of Ribery and Götze to receive the ball in.

Roma’s Going Forward

This section has to be forwarded by the fact that Bayern Munich’s pressing, aided by their high line, made it incredibly difficult for Roma to get forward. For much of the match, whenever Roma got on the ball, Bayern were able to get numbers on the ball, with the match squeezed into Roma’s defensive half, and win the ball back quickly. This wasn’t helped by the Roma’s front three. They lacked composure and Destro, who was typically the most forward to the three, was unable to hold the ball up and wait for teammates to get forward or play the ball back into a support player that would allow Roma to put their foot on the ball and try to build.

Far too many times, when Destro did get the ball, he was too quick to try to pick out direct runs of Iturbe and Florenzi, and more often than not, failed to pick out the forward runs and gave possession back to Bayern Munich.

Gervinho’s introduction into the game added a spark to Roma’s attacks. He has the ability and confidence to run at a defense and this gave Bayern some defensive duties that they hadn’t had prior. He had a shot well saved by Neuer that led to Nainggolan’s effort that was excellently saved by Neuer.

Conclusion

Bayern scored two excellent goals, including a finessed volley from Götze to put Bayern 2-0 up. They were excellent on ball and their positional rotation allowed them to keep possession well while not exposing them to counter attacks. Overall, Bayern’s defense looks much more stable and comfortable this year. Benatia’s defensive ability is far better than Dante’s, whose decisions are sometimes rash and left Bayern exposed far too often last year.

Roma looked much better than in the 7-1 match, at least defensively. While the obvious difference in scoreline tells that, they looked much more organised and compact. Their efforts going forward were few with the starting three of Florenzi, Destro, and Iturbe, but looked a bit better when Pjanic and Gervinho were put on.