Match date: 15 April 2015

Porto come into the match as the only unbeaten side in the Champions League this season, while Bayern Munich disposed of Shakhtar Donetsk rather in the last stage, winning 7-0 in the second leg.

Julen Lopetegui has done well with Porto in his first year with the Portuguese side after managing the U19-U21 Spanish national teams over the last few years. Porto easily beat Basel in the last stage with an aggregate score of 5-1 and Lopetegui made four changes from the second leg of that tie for this match with Martins Indi, Oliver, Quaresma, and Martinez all coming into the side in a 4-3-3.

Bayern Munich certainly have not been at their best since the turn of year and much like last season, their domestic campaign is essentially over, with focus completely on the Champions League. The German side recently beat Borussia Dortmund 1-0, but there was an uncomfortability about Bayern Munich that was concerning. Their last match was a 3-0 win over Frankfurt and Guardiola made just two changes to the starting XI with Boateng and Neuer back in the side, but changed his side’s shape to a 4-3-1-2.

Porto’s Pressing, Bayern’s Pressing

So much of Porto’s success throughout the match was due to their excellent pressing which made Bayern Munich incredibly uncomfortable. Just ninety seconds into the match, Jackson Martinez dispossessed Xabi Alonso. just outside of the Bayern Munich penalty area, and won a penalty against Neuer, who got a yellow card with Martinez’s last touch going away from goal. This set the tone of the match as Porto made it increasingly difficult for Bayern Munich to play their way out of the back, with long ball options to Lewandowski and Müller not a consistently effective option for the German side. Below is an excellent example of Porto’s pressing when Neuer had the ball. Martinez always looked to find Alonso, which allowed him to win the penalty and nick the ball off of Alonso a few other times during the match. Also evident is the positioning of Brahimi and Quaresma, who would push to Boateng and Dante, leaving the wide areas open. However, with Bayern’s narrow midfield, this allowed Danilo and Alex Sandro to position themselves high up against Rafinha and Bernat.

Above, you can see Lahm and Alonso in the same area of the pitch. What was meant to be midfield diamond, with Alonso at the bottom, Lahm on the right, Thiago on the left, and Götze at the top, became much more ‘L’ shaped as Lahm would drop deep alongside Alonso, pushed back by Porto’s excellent pressing.

Dante’s error, along with Porto’s pressing lead to the home side’s second goal, but it was a different type of pressing from that that led to the first goal. In that phase, Porto were high up the pitch and Martinez was very close to Alonso, like in the screen capture above. On the second goal, however, already a goal up, Porto defended a bit deeper, allowing Dante and Boateng time on the ball, but waiting for a poorly weighted or predictable pass before pouncing. Unfortunately for Bayern Munich and Dante, it was the Brazilian’s poor touch that was the trigger and Quaresma got in easily, sliding the ball past Neuer.

It is not too often that a Guardiola is outpressed by their opposition, and they often pick apart teams that try to press them high up the pitch (as we witnessed a few times in the Guardiola Barcelona v Mourinho Real Madrid era), but here, Bayern Munich were thoroughly outpressed by Porto. At times when Bayern did press, they were caught out by Porto’s pace and trickery through Brahimi and Quaresma. They were able to pick the ball up in deep positions and bypass Bayern’s press on the dribble (notice the comparison image below), while Bayern Munich lacked that sort of option to get my Porto’s pressing, mostly because of the personnel that Guardiola had on the field, with only Thiago showing the ability to do so, but also because of how high Porto were pressing. Had the likes of Thiago gone deeper than the Porto press to get on the ball, Bayern Munich would have made it even harder to get by the pressing as the forward passing options would have been an isolated Lewandowski and Müller.

Bayern’s Midfield Diamond

Guardiola’s decision to line up in a 4-3-1-2/4-4-2 seemed based purely on the squad he had rather than attempting to get at or neutralise Porto. There were two huge problems with the shape that hurt Bayern Munich for much of the game. The first being that without wide midfielders/wingers, it left Rafinha and Bernat exposed, at times, to a 2v1 against Brahimi and Alex Sandro on the left and Quaresma and Danilo on the right. Both were consistent outlets for Porto, whether that was to bypass Bayern’s lackluster pressing or in space further up the field.

It would be harsh to say that Bayern lost the game because of the openness of the wide areas, but it made Porto more difficult to defend against and without the likes of Robben and Ribery in the wide areas, Bayern were forced to play down the middle for much of the match, which saw Casemiro shine.

The second problem that Bayern’s formation created was the positioning of Thiago and Götze. At times, both players seemed on top of one another. Starved of the ball due to Porto’s pressing, Götze looked to drop into Thiago’s space on the left side of the diamond and it meant that the two teammates were almost competing for that space and made them almost redundant. It was frustrating to watch at times, but a lot of credit must be given to Porto and to Casemiro from pushing Götze out of that space between the lines.

With this in mind, it was unsurprising that Götze was subbed off in the 56th minute by Guardiola and replaced by Rode, who moved to the left of the midfield diamond, allowing Thiago to go to the top. With Thiago in that position, Bayern looked at their best as he was able to break the Porto lines with his passing and on the dribble. The Spaniard’s influence on the game was evident throughout, but he started to really pull the strings for Bayern Munich once he was moved slightly more forward and was given more space to work in, especially without Götze moving into his space. Rode added a lot to the side as well, shuttling between the boxes, providing energy and dynamism that Götze lacked earlier.

Bayern Going Forward, Porto’s Shape

Bayern Munich’s play was very poor for much of the night, but got better as Thiago moved further forward and Rode was brought on. There were few times that Bayern were able to sustain possession in Porto’s half and the game always seemed to remain very open, which was to the disadvantage of Bayern Munich and Pep Guardiola, who prefer a controlled game on their end. So many times, Bayern’s attacks were comprised of just four or five players, rather than looking to get numbers forward, shift the ball quick to create gaps, and being intricate and decisive around the penalty area. When Bayern did get good control and possession of the ball, Porto’s shape was very good and they got into it very quickly, eliminating gaps, especially through the middle. Below is a good example of this as Boateng has the ball deep in his own half, Porto get into their shape quickly and begin dropping off.

Porto were well disciplined and the above shape would simply continue dropping deep with Casemiro an incredibly important part to the Portuguese side as he patrolled the space between the lines. The Brazilian, who is on loan from Real Madrid, broke up play for Porto very well, whether Bayern were patient or breaking quickly. When Götze was on, Casemiro forced the German international to drop deep to get the ball which, as mentioned above, became problematic for Thiago and Bayern.

Conclusion

Porto’s pressing won them this match, and perhaps the tie, by forcing Bayern Munich into uncharacteristic mistakes. All three Porto goals were caused by errors from Bayern Munich’s three deepest outfield players. Alonso was robbed of possession in the lead up to the penalty. Dante’s poor touch allowed Quaresma in, and Boateng’s poorly timed header allowed Martinez to round Neuer and slot a third goal. Porto’s three goals were their only three shots on target.

Guardiola will have a lot of feelings about this game. He will lament the inability to select a starting XI from his best players, with so many injured. More importantly, however, he will be forced to reflect on a midfield shape that seemed to cause more problems than it solved.

Both coaches will learn from this match, but one has to believe that the tie is far from over, especially if Bayern Munich are able to get on goal early on in the second leg.