The Champions League is back! After previous worries about the
continuity of the competition this season, fans all over were all relieved and thrilled
to see the biggest club competition back on their screens.
The brief hiatus offered 3-time UCL champion, Zinedine Zidane, a
chance to do some in-depth research on how to overturn the first leg "2-1"
loss against Manchester City and outwit Guardiola and provide us with another UEFA
champions league night of remarkable turnaround. But he and his troops fell
short courtesy of two Raphael Varane errors.
Much of the blame laid on him for the errors, but should he be
blamed? Let's take a look at the tactical breakdown from this match, shall we?
Note: For better
understanding, images showing the events were added.
Manchester City lined
up in their usual 4-3-3 formation same as Real Madrid, but while City opted for a 4-4-2 when without the
ball with. Real Madrid went with a 4-5-1 when out of
possession.
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| Real Madrid starting formation |
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| Manchester City starting formation |
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Manchester City formation without the ball
|
Manchester City, as expected, played a high line and high press,
which is their forte. However, what was surprising was seeing Real Madrid do
the same when they do not have the manpower and technical knowledge to play out
from the back, and that proved to be their downfall.
With Foden leading the line City's wide players G.Jesus and
R.Sterling pressed both of Madrid's CB while blocking passing lanes to the
fullbacks by making curved runs.
As seen in the image above, all passing options were blocked, and
with De Bruyne in close access with Kroos, Walker heading over to the flanks to
close any potential long-kick down to Mendy and Foden blocking any pass to
Casemiro. City clearly did their homework, and since neither Varane, Militao,
nor Courtois is not accomplished ball-playing players, mistakes here were
always inevitable, and so it happened. Jesus pressured Varane, who took ages on
the ball and passed to Sterling to tap into an empty net.
Chance after chance kept coming City's way. In the image below, Courtois passed to
Casemiro (who I am pretty sure isn't Busquets and, as such, will make mistakes
when pressured). On receiving the pass from Courtois, Casemiro is immediately
pressed by Gundogan, and he ends up playing a straight pass to the opponent
(Phil Foden) to be specific. Foden advanced to the edge of the penalty area,
passed to Gundogan, who, for some inexplicable reason, decided a pass out wide
to Sterling was the best option and that goalscoring chance was wasted.
This was a recurring theme all night: Madrid trying unsuccessfully
to play out from the back and City putting them under pressure, forcing them
into errors and creating goalscoring opportunities, and had they not been
profligate would have scored more.
The final goal also came from a Varane error, Jesus seizing on a
miscontrolled header (a pressing trigger) to finish brilliantly past the
goalkeeper.
Now the question that begs is, should Varane shoulder all the blame
or should Zidane and his backroom staff have tried something different seeing
that their game-plan wasn't going to yield results? Well, I leave the decision
to you.
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