There were a number of interesting results in last weekends Bundesliga fixtures, and perhaps the pick of these was between last years champions and runners up, with both Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund picking up losses. Borussia Dortmund travelled to Bavaria to take on Augsburg, with both teams coming off the back of good opening day wins, but it was Augsburg who came away with the three points this game week. Augsburg put in a superb defensive performance against an albeit stale Dortmund side to win the game 2-0, but the most interesting stat that jumped out of the game was the possession stats, with Dortmund dominating the ball as expected with 76% possession compared to Augsburgs 24%. This then begs the question of how do you win a game with such little possession , and within this tactical analysis, I will seek to answer that question by examining both Augsburgs defensive system and the positional play of Dortmund.
Lineups
Heiko Herrlichs Augsburg lined up in a 4-4-2, while Borussia Dortmund played a slight variation on their usual 3-4-3, with them this time opting for more of a 3-4-1-2, with Gio Reyna playing as a ten fluidly. Dortmund would adopt the more traditional 3-4-3 situationally, but certainly in central build-up Reyna acted as a ten.
Augsburgs defensive system
As possession stats would suggest, Augsburg operated within a very passive 4-4-2, with Dortmunds centre backs rarely pressured when in possession. Augsburg remained compact both vertically and horizontally, and the main focus of their play seemed to be to limit access to the central areas and central midfielders/pivot.
In a conventional 4-4-2 press, we would often see the strikers press the opposition centre backs at a certain line of engagement, however Augsburg were very disciplined in rarely pressing the Dortmund back line, and instead they stayed deeper and looked to cover the Dortmund pivot (Axel Witsel). We can see an example here where the ball near striker remains close to Witsel to prevent him from receiving, while his partner also remains compact to the central area. The wingers would remain narrow and cut access to the half-space, while the central midfielders would mark the Dortmund central midfielders.
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