Ahead of this match, RB Leipzig had 33 points and sat in the first position of the Bundesliga. However, Borussia Monchengladbach had 31 points while Borussia Dortmund collected until then 29 points. Considering this, the clash between Leipzig and Dortmund meant that the league leaders would face the team in the third position away from home.
This was clearly the highlight of the 16th matchday as the two teams met in the Signal Iduna Park just one week ahead of Christmas. Additionally, after this matchday, there would be just another one left ahead of the winter break.
In this tactical analysis, well look at both teams tactics and discuss with the aid of analysis why this game ended 3-3 after a thrilling 90 minutes.
Lineups
The young German coach Julian Nagelsmann went for a 4-3-1-2 formation which looked during the game more like a 4-3-3. Péter Gulácsi was the man between the sticks while the back four in front of him was made of Marcel Halstenberg, Dayot Upamecano, Lukas Klostermann, and Nordi Mukiele. The central midfielders were Konrad Laimer, Diego Demme, and Marcel Sabitzer. The wingers were Timo Werner and Yussuf Poulsen while Emil Forsberg was surprisingly the striker as he mostly was between Werner and Poulsen and not behind them.
On the other side, Lucien Favre lined his team up in a 3-4-3 (5-4-1) formation with Roman Bürki in goal. The back five was made of Achraf Hakimi, Manuel Akanji, Mats Hummels, Dan-Axel Zagadou, and Raphael Guerreiro. Julian Weigl and Julian Brandt occupied the central midfield while Marco Reus was the central man upfront. Thorgan Hazard and Jadon Sancho were the wingers.
Leipzig’s pressing and Dortmund’s solution
Normally you would expect from these two teams to execute right from the beginning an aggressive and high pressing. Dortmund did so in the opening minutes, but then mostly sat back deeper as we’ll see later in this analysis. Meanwhile, Nagelsmann’s team tried right from the start on to not give Dortmund any time to breathe.
BVB used a similar formation during the build-up as is shown on the teamsheet. The back three was positioned a bit wider to not be that close to each other, while the wing-backs positioned near the touchline and a few yards higher. Weigl and Brandt were responsible for the progression of the ball through the centre and due to that, were in front of the back three. Meanwhile, the three forwards moved quite freely and appeared in different spaces.
Anyways, as it
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