UEFA Champions League 2021/2022: How a minor shift in formation could script a historical comeback for Chelsea – tactical preview

The 2021-22 UEFA Champions League has seen some interesting tactical games and some sleeper upsets like Villarreal winning against Juventus and also winning their first leg against the mighty Bayern Munich. But one game that is still interesting from a tactical perspective is the ChelseaReal Madrid tie in which Madrid won the first leg at Stamford Bridge 3-1. 

Though it looks like a long way for Chelsea, the defending champions still have the quality and the mastermind in the form of Thomas Tuchel to overturn this tie around. With the away goals rule not around anymore, the tie gets even more interesting and slightly helps Chelsea where a 2-0 win can also be enough to at least take it to extra time.

This tactical analysis in the form of a preview features how Chelsea and Tuchel can outclass Carlo Ancelottis men with their tactics and produce a memorable comeback in the backyard of the Kings of Europe. Lets begin the preview.

A shift to 3-5-2

The major change going into the 2nd leg from Tuchel should be a change in formation from the 3-4-3 to the 3-5-2. Tuchel has always mixed his system between those two since his arrival at Chelsea which also depended largely on the players available. With the likes of Mason Mount, he was able to play both 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 at the same time due to Mount’s versatility enabling him to play as a winger and as a midfielder in a three-man midfield. The UCL final last season saw him using the 3-5-2 / 3-4-3 hybrid with the 3-5-2 predominantly seen where Mason Mount would drop very often. The 3-4-3 isn’t a bad setup for Tuchel at all and in fact, it was really effective in most of the games he played. The change to a 5-2-3 defensively in that system was really difficult for teams to break down. The key point here is that it involves the front three to be very disciplined and execute their press perfectly. If that fails then the whole block breaks with the two-man midfield struggling to cover the spaces.

We can see that in the image above where Havertz has a very poor press and fails to keep Casemiro in his cover-shadow that sees the latter being easily given a pass from Militao and Real Madrid ease through the first line of Chelsea. Usually marking Casemiro is very key to the pressing in a 5-2-3 for Chelsea and they didn’t get it right a lot of times in the first leg. 

After breaking the first line it was going to be easy for Real Madrid to play around with the second line as both Jorginho and Kante are already outnumbered with Modric, Kroos and Casemiro attracting them and adding Benzema to that just make things even more difficult for them when the Frenchmen looks to drop deep.