Europa League 2018/19 Tactical Analysis: Eintracht Frankfurt vs Chelsea

At an electric Commerzbank-Arena, Eintracht Frankfurt and Chelsea were both looking to gain an advantage going into the second leg. Frankfurt, without Ante Rebić and Sebastian Haller, were looking to continue their impressive home form in the Europa League. While Chelsea were as offensive minded as ever, and looked to find an away goal that would put them in a good position going into the second leg. Chelsea, of course, did find this away goal, and could possibly have scored more on the day thanks to an impressive performance against a team capable of doing real damage, as they showed early on.

In this tactical analysis, I will show how Frankfurt started so well with some excellent out of possession work and how Jorginho took control of the game in the second half to guide Chelsea to a pleasing result.

Lineups

Frankfurt went with a familiar 3-5-2, with a slight variation being the role of Mijat Gaćinović, which is a role I will analyse later as a key role in the game. Chelsea also went with their usual system, unsurprisingly, but without Eden Hazard who was left on the bench. With both Haller and Rebić not available, it was vital that Luka Jović stepped up for Frankfurt and he, yet again, proved his credentials on the big stage. On paper, we can see that if Frankfurt can stretch the play enough and occupy central players, one v ones could be created in the wide areas and this is something which Frankfurt looked to use to create overloads from crosses.

Crossing overloads

When Frankfurt had possession deep in Chelseas half, Gaćinović would become a striker and occupy players in the box, as would some of Frankfurts central midfield players depending on the situation. Early on, Chelsea didnt deal with these situations particularly well as we can see from their structure below. Frankfurts overload, in which Emerson has three players making runs around him meaning that Luiz and Christensen should have adjusted their shape and pulled across and deeper, to cut off the cross. Likewise, if every player shuffles across slightly, Luiz can occupy the run Emerson is currently tracking, while Emerson can focus on the back post. It is however extremely difficult to defend this situation and adjust this quickly, and so its great offensive work from Frankfurt, who just missed a perfect delivery on a few occasions.