Bayern Munich – Manchester City: City Control The Match To Advance To The Semifinals (1-1)

This season’s UEFA Champions League’s biggest quarterfinal in terms of team quality and tactical intrigue also happened to be the one with the biggest first leg lead. Manchester City were quite comfortable as they touched down in Munich with a three-goal advantage after a convincing victory at the Etihad Stadium. Naturally, their gameplan at the Allianz Arena was centered around control, and they succeeded.

Tactical analysis and match report by Neel Shelat.

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Bayern Munich’s decision to sack Julian Nagelsmann was puzzling enough at the time, but it has come under further scrutiny after more disappointing results in the early days of Thomas Tuchel’s tenure. Those included an elimination from the DFB Pokal at the hands of Freiburg, as well as that heavy first-leg defeat in England. Expecting them to turn the tie around would definitely have been too much, but a strong performance was the bare minimum for this game.

On the flip side, Manchester City have been rather enjoying life in recent weeks. A ten-match winning streak has placed them in the hunt for three trophies as the end of the season draws closer. In the league, Arsenal’s slip-ups have brought City within striking distance. In the FA Cup, they have a semi-final against second-tier Sheffield United. And in the Champions League, only a monumental collapse would prevent them from reaching the semifinal for the third consecutive season.

Bayern Munich made a couple of changes from the first leg. The first of those saw João Cancelo replace Alphonso Davies at left back, with Matthijs de Ligt, Dayot Upamecano and Benjamin Pavard making up the rest of the back line alongside Yann Sommer. The other change saw Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting lead the line, whilst the pacy Kingsley Coman and Leroy Sané started on the flanks, and Leon Goretzka partnered Joshua Kimmich in midfield behind Jamal Musiala.

Manchester City started with four traditional center-backs ahead of Ederson, namely Manuel Akanji, John Stones, Rúben Dias and Nathan Aké. Rodri was the deepest of the midfielders, with İlkay Gündoğan and Kevin De Bruyne ahead of him whilst Bernardo Silva and Jack Grealish flanked Erling Haaland up front.

Bayern fail to find a solution against City’s press

The turning point in the first leg seemed to come in the second half, when Pep Guardiola switched up his side’s pressing system to one which relied on the wingers to initiate with curved runs. This caused major problems to Bayern’s attempts in playing out from the back, and Upamecano in particular was made to lose possession in some very dangerous situations. If they were to have any chance in this match, they had to find an antidote.

They did not exactly manage to do that. Thomas Tuchel made no major alterations to how his team tried to play out from the back, so there was no major difference in the outcome either. As they did in the first leg, Bayern played out from the back in a 3-4 structure with the center-backs split fairly wide and the fullbacks pushing up a decent amount. Given the nature of Manchester City’s centrally constrictive press, Sommer was forced to play chipped balls out to the far-side fullback as an escape.

That did not always work out, as the corresponding Manchester City winger would chase back to close them down. Further, if the fullback on that side saw an opportunity to win the ball back, he would push up and make a challenge.

13th minute: As Grealish closes him down, Sommer plays a chipped pass out to Cancelo, who gets overrun by the onrushing Akanji.

The main reason why things did not end as badly for Bayern on the night as they did in the first is the fact that Manchester City simply did not press as much. With a three-goal lead in the bag, they were often happy to sit in a compact 4-2-4 medium block. Such a risk-averse approach could also be seen in their possession-play.

City’s conservative wide center-backs limit Bayern’s transition threat

Everyone knows by now that Manchester City have regularly been using a 3-2-4-1 structure in possession of late. Of course, they are often faced with the task of breaking down staunch low blocks, and at such times, one of their go-to tricks is to have their wide center-backs advance down a flank with the ball and create an overload.

In this match, though, the visitors were more concerned with limiting the counterattacking threat their opponents could pose, so the wide center-backs’ responsibilities changed a bit. Of course, they were still encouraged to help progress the ball by carrying it out wide, but they rarely stuck around to create overloads near the final third.

25th minute: Akanji brings the ball forward and plays it out to De Bruyne, before sprinting backwards to the halfway line.

This instance reflected Manchester City’s approach to rest defense in this match. Their main focus was limiting Bayern’s threat in transition – especially through their pacy wingers – so they always ensured they had numbers in the back line, even at the cost of their counterpressing success. Bayern did manage to break forward in transition, but they were mostly stifled in the final third by a combination of the defenders in the Manchester City box and poor finishing on their part.

Third time lucky for Haaland to seal the tie

Manchester City knew that they could effectively kill the tie off by drawing first blood, and of course, their Norwegian striker was likeliest to do so.

In the eighteenth minute, he raced onto a De Bruyne through ball and seemed to be in on goal before being pushed down by Upamecano. The referee came across and showed the French defender a red card, but had to overturn his decision after Haaland was found to be marginally offside.

Another eighteen or so minutes later, Upamecano gave away a penalty after inadvertently diverting a shot with his arm in the box. Of course, Haaland stepped up to take it but he ended up skying it, missing a penalty for the first time in the colours of Manchester City. So, Bayern were still just about alive in the tie at half-time in Munich.

Haaland eventually delivered the decisive blow just over ten minutes into the second period. Funnily enough, it was a counterattack that created the chance as he brought down a long ball for De Bruyne, got forward and received the return pass, hurdled over Upamecano after he slipped, and finally beat Sommer with a powerful finish.

With that, Bayern’s Champions League campaign was destined to end on this evening, so Kimmich’s late penalty was no more than consolation.

Takeaways

This match was a bit of a write-off for Bayern given their sizeable deficit from the first leg. Performance-wise, they looked a little bit better, but it should also be said that they were not as bad in Manchester as the scoreline suggested. Ultimately, though, they cannot complain about being knocked out against such a quality-filled Manchester City side, so they must now turn their full focus to the one meaningful trophy they can still win this season.

Guardiola has been burned by the element of variance in knockout football to the point where he seemed to strive for total control in such ties. Here, though, his side seemed to strike the perfect balance between being risk-averse in and out of possession, but also taking the opportunities to counterattack when they were presented. Perhaps it is this balance that will finally break Manchester City’s Champions League curse.

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