Match date: 4 April 2015

The troubles of Dortmund’s season have been well documented, and while the turn of the year has seen them climb to 10th in Bundesliga, they were recently knocked out of the Champions League and find themselves 15 points behind Bayer Leverkusen, who are in fourth.

Bayern Munich continue to have domestic success under Pep Guardiola, despite losing to Borussia Monchengladbach and Wolfsburg since the turn of the year, as they sit fairly comfortably at the top of Bundesliga, while they drew Porto in the Champions League, giving them a more favourable draw than other some of the other contenders.

Jurgen Klopp made three changes to the starting XI that beat Hannover in Dortmund’s last match with Sven Bender coming in for Kehl in midfield alongside Gündoğan. Schmelzer came in for Kirch and Kampl in for Kagawa in Klopp’s 4-2-3-1.

Guardiola made a number of changes to the side that lost to Borussia Monchengladbach, including changing from a 4-3-3 to a 3-1-4-2(1-1). Dante and Benatia came in alongside Boateng in the back three while Lahm and Müller came into the side.

Dortmund’s Pressing, Bayern Look Long

This was a very atypical Guardiola performance. Bayern Munich struggled to take control of the match and, at times, it seemed to be the result of Dortmund’s excellent pressing, while other times it seemed to be the planned approach by Guardiola, who tellingly showed a lot of emotion in the closing seconds of the game. Regardless, Dortmund’s pressing was superb and they were able to force Bayern Munich very deep and the pinned back Rafinha and Bernat. Below, you can see an excellent example of Dortmund’s pressing from early on. Dante is forced to play a square pass to Boateng as he has no forward options.

Dortmund would look to overload the side of the ball carrier, in the case above it was Dante. The forward passing lanes were clogged up by covering players, which Bender and Gündoğan did very well throughout. Most of the time, Dante and Benatia were forced to play a simple square ball to Boateng, who would then usually look to play a long ball into Lewandowski, or they were forced back to Neuer, who would play a long ball into either Lewandowski or Müller, when the latter made runs into the wide areas to exploit the space left by Schmelzer and Sokratis.

The problem for Bayern Munich, and the success of Dortmund, was that the pressing made Bayern Munich’s play predictable for Dortmund and uncomfortable for the visitors. One of the biggest problems for Bayern was that Rafinha and Bernat were pinned back. Against a 4-2-3-1, Bayern Munich’s wing backs were always going to be in a 1v2 situation when defending and the high positioning of Schmelzer and Sokratis (although the Greek was more cautious going forward) meant that it was hard for Rafinha and Bernat to get out of their deep positions. This meant that Bayern Munich really did not have an outlet in the wide areas (although Müller would sometimes drift wide) like they would in a 4-3-3 with the likes of Robben and Ribery out wide. Without that wide option, the main target became Lewandowski, who was dealt relatively well with by Hummels and Subotic.

For Dortmund, not only was their pressing effective in winning the ball back in their attacking half of the field, it also allowed them to dictate the game and Bayern Munich’s play. Alonso struggled to get on the ball and the pressure from Reus and Aubameyang forced the Spaniard into a number of errors that lead to Dortmund opportunities. When Lewandowski was able to hold up a ball from Neuer or Boateng, the midfield trio of Lahm, Schweinsteiger, and Alonso were slow to support the forward. Müller would often look to run into space behind Dortmund’s high line as Lewandowski played the ball back to one the midfield players, but Bayern Munich’s passing was sloppy even when they were given time on the ball and they looked to force passes forward rather than play away from pressure and shift Dortmund’s defense.

Pep’s Approach

This is not the first time that Pep has moved away from the more idealist approach that has brought him huge success during his managerial career. Dortmund are a side that, in the past, have been able to cut through Pep’s teams with quick counter attacks and this has mostly been the theme of the two sides since Pep’s arrival at Bayern Munich. Dortmund – the highly energetic, counter attacking experts against Bayern Munich – the patient and controlled. This time, however, it was different. Bayern Munich allowed Dortmund to have the ball and put it to the home side to try to break them down, which Dortmund found incredibly hard to do. Their best chance from open play fell to Reus after their pressing caused an error and the German international was only able to hit the side netting. In fact, Dortmund had just one shot on goal and it came from Reus’ free kick late on that was well saved by Neuer.

This wasn’t the first time that Pep tried a different approach towards Dortmund. Last season, Guardiola played Javi Martinez in a number 10 role from the start of the game with Bayern Munich playing the ball long to Martinez and Mandzukic. It was only after Martinez was moved to into a pivote role and Thiago and Mario Götze were brought on the Bayern got their win, however. This match saw a similar approach to that 3-0 win as Bayern looked to play long, but this side were much more defensive and defended in a low block, especially given that Lahm, Schweinsteiger, and Alonso were all in the side. Below is a good example of Bayern Munich’s defending. They were well organised and made it hard for Dortmund to play forward passes centrally. Bender has just one forward option to Kampl, who was offside.

This approach made it difficult for Dortmund. Neither Reus or Aubameyang were able to find space in behind Bayern’s back three and because Bayern were playing so deep and allowed Dortmund to have the ball, it nullified the home side’s counter attacking play.

When Dortmund did get their chances to counter attack, Bayern were very quick to get in a tactical foul. Xabi Alonso’s foul on Kagawa that earned the Spaniard a yellow card sums this side of Bayern’s play up very well. Alonso held onto Kagawa’s shirt even as the Spaniard fell to the ground and got back up. As long as the ball was in front of Bayern Munich, they were comfortable and so they made sure that this was always the case.

Changes

Guardiola made the first change bringing on Sebastian Rode for Schweinsteiger, which was forced and like-for-like. Thiago was brought on later and Bayern had a bit more possession and attacking threat about them with the Spaniard on. He was dynamic, broke the lines well, and showed glimpses of the player that Bayern Munich have been missing. Götze was brought on in the 80th minute without much influence on the match.

Klopp’s changes were more calculated. Kagawa came on for Blaszczykowski in the 67th minute and was the type of player that Dortmund could look to as they tried to find the gaps in the Bayern Munich defense. The Japanese star struggled to have the type of influence that Klopp would have hoped, however. Ramos was brought on at the same time as Kagawa for Kampl and he too failed to have any real contribution to the side. Mkhitaryan’s introduction for Gündoğan was the last change by Klopp and as the game went on Mkhitaryan started to play much deeper as Subotic went forward to add another aerial option while the Armenian played alongside Hummels and hit long balls forward.

Conclusion

In some ways it seemed as though this is exactly as Guardiola wanted the game to go. He named a very defensive side, particularly in midfield with Lahm, Schweinsteiger, and Alonso and Bayern Munich had one ‘okay’ counter attack that resulted in a goal and allowed his side to sit back for the entirety of the second half. it was of little surprise that Guardiola highlighted the contribution of Dante, one of the members of his back three, as they played very well throughout the match.

Klopp seemed void of ideas. He commented after the match about how his side had Bayern Munich pinned back, but the Dortmund boss failed to think of a way to break down Bayern’s defensive approach. Klopp also pointed a finger at the referee, who failed to call a penalty for Dortmund after Alonso stepped on Aubameyang’s foot before winning the ball.