It has been eight years since Chelsea won the UEFA Champions League, in Munich, against the host team of Bayern, smashing their dreams of winning the biggest trophy in club football in their own home. Now it is their first encounter after that dramatic final and without doubt Bayern will seek revenge. However, the young Chelsea squad will have a word on that as well.
This tactical analysis preview will be structured in a slightly different way though. Looking at both teams’ philosophies, we see that Bayern under Hansi Flick play in a similar way in almost every game, regardless of the opponent. Frank Lampard’s Chelsea, on the other hand, have a clear idea on how they want to play as well, which is attractive attacking football with a mixture of possession and vertical game. Chelsea are capable of adapting to the opponent though, using different formations depending on the opponent’s strengths. So it requires sound knowledge about the opponent in order to predict how Lampard might possibly play. Thus, in our analysis we will first have a look at how Flick will set-up his team and then switch over to Lampard’s possible tactics against this.
Probable Bayern Line-Up
Most likely, this will be Hansi Flick’s first choice. Since he took over from Niko Kovač, Flick always used a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3–formation, except the most recent game against Paderborn where he decided to play in a 3-4-2-1-formation. The back three system, even though seemingly fitting to the team in theory, did not prove to give the result Bayern expected. Flick’s philosophy is based on high pressing and vertical play, which obviously can be better executed in a 4-2-3-1 with better access to the opponent further up the pitch.
Question marks remain on two positions. One will be the central advanced midfielder position, in our line-up occupied by Leon Goretzka. Goretzka brings in a lot of physicality and dynamics. Thanks to his high workload and stamina, he is a strong box-to-box player. However, there is also the option to move Thomas Müller into the centre and play Kingsley Coman on the wing. This would be a much more offensive and aggressive approach. Most likely, if Goretzka is healthy (he missed the recent game against Paderborn), Flick will opt in for him. The second critical position is the centre-back spot next to David Alaba. While Jérôme Boateng stabilized his performance to a certain point, 80 Million Euro transfer Lucas Hernández pushes for a starting spot. We will analyse the pros and cons for that in the following.
