Chelsea changes: What Emma Hayes must fix to knock out Bayern in the Champions League second leg – tactical analysis

The UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final’s first leg between Bayern Munich Women and Chelsea Women finished with a 2-1 win for Bayern who got an important advantage on aggregates ahead of the second leg, while the Blues will strive and give their all to turn the table and qualify to the final to face one of Paris Saint Germain or Barcelona.

In this tactical analysis article, we will look at how will both teams perform next Sunday in the second leg, what will be their most likely formations and line-ups, and what tactical plans will they adopt while taking into consideration what happened in the first leg. This preview will be a sort of a pre-match analysis that explores Bayern Munich and Chelsea’s tactics using statistics, player performances, and head coach ideas and plans.

Probable line-ups and formations

Chelsea lost the first leg and will have to play more attacking football to fight for their qualification chances while at the same time ensure that they defend well to not lose everything. Therefore, their task will be more certainly more difficult than Bayern Munich’s who will head to Kingsmeadow while knowing that they are not obliged to attack in order to qualify, and this will make things harder for the Blues even though Bayern Munich will also try to exploit counter-attacks to “kill” the game.

This means that Chelsea will use their best line-up mixing attacking players with players who can keep things safe at the back, and with the possible return of Magdalena Eriksson, Chelsea would more probably defend better than in the first leg. Anyways, that’s what they should do if they want to keep their qualification chances alive.

Emma Hayes would start the game with the 4-2-3-1 formation which transforms to the 4-2-4 formation in attack, and we will explain how below.

Ann-Katrin Berger would be the goalkeeper, Jessica Carter as a right-back instead of the injured Maren Mjelde, Millie Bright and Magdalena Eriksson (if ready to play, otherwise Sophie Ingle will replace her) as centre-backs with Jonna Andersson as a left-back. The midfield will be formed of Ji So-yun and Melanie Leupolz central midfielders while Fran Kirby will be the right winger, Erin Cuthbert as a left winger, Pernille Harder as an advanced playmaker and Sam Kerr as a striker.

This would be the formation on paper and in some instances of the match, yet, this formation can change to a 4-2-4 formation especially when Chelsea will be attacking, with Kirby and Cuthbert as wingers who cut inside and play inside the box more often and Harder who will advance and be a second striker with Kerr to give more attacking depth and disturb Bayern Munich’s organised defence.

Bayern Munich however will more likely keep their newly adopted 3-5-2 formation which suited the team almost perfectly in the first leg and would probably help to reduce Chelsea’s attacking threat once again in this match, even though that would be more difficult this time.

Scheuer would rely on Laura Benkarth as a goalkeeper, Amanda Ilestedt, Marina Hegering and Simone Laudehr in defence, Hanna Glas and Carolin Simon as wingers, Sydney Lohmann, Sarah Zadrazil and Lina Magull as central midfielders with both Lineth Beerensteyn and Lea Schüller as strikers, while resting Klara Bühl this time since Schüller can be more clinical inside the box in these kinds of games.

How should Chelsea play to ensure qualification

Emma Hayes was probably surprised with the way Bayern Munich played in the first leg, as we all were, given that they used a playing system that they did not use in years and played with the right mentality to not concede away goals while at the same time exploit each and every attacking opportunity they got. And even though Chelsea were a bit lucky in their away goal action, the team’s attacking performance was not so bad and building on what they did in that game while correcting the mistakes will suffice to be more dangerous in the second leg and score the needed goals, knowing that only one goal would turn the tables and give an advantage for the Blues.

Chelsea’s attacking mistakes were mainly related to movements without the ball in Bayern’s half, lack of accuracy in the final pass and in finishing as well. If they succeed in doing better in this regard and play with more confidence while using their physical strength more often to get rid of the excessive Bayern’s marking especially in midfield, Chelsea’s attacking players can then be unstoppable since these players have the technical abilities to harm any defence.

One of Bayern’s most successful defensive plans in the first leg was stopping Chelsea’s build up by not allowing the ball to reach the front three/four and surrounding the two central midfielders Ji and Leupolz. Using the five players employed in midfield helped Scheuer and Bayern in successfully marking these two players and in preventing them from passing so often to one of Kirby, Harder, Kerr or Reiten. And we saw Ji having a hard time finding passing lanes since she faced two or three Bayern midfielders each time she got the ball in midfield, and this prevented her from passing to unmarked players even if they were moving a lot.

To get rid of this midfield pressing and numerical superiority, Harder and both wingers must come closer to Ji and Leupolz to help them in keeping possession, and since these three players have the abilities to advance with the ball or make passing combinations with each other to reach the final third, this alternative would benefit Chelsea by generating more chances and losing the ball less in the build-up.

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