UEFA Champions League 2019/20: Chelsea vs Bayern Munich – tactical analysis

The round of sixteen draw in the UEFA Champions League saw Chelsea drawn against a then resurgent Bayern Munich side, who were still finding their feet under new manager Hansi Flick. Fast forward to the actual fixture, and Bayern look like the usual dominant, tactically excellent Bayern, and coming into the game Chelsea were rightfully underdogs. Bayern imposed their tactics on the English side and reminded everyone of the quality of German football, not that anyone who has followed Flicks Bayern needed to be reminded. In this tactical analysis, we will look at how Chelseas pressing and its triggers looked to halt Bayern, how Bayern overcame these, and look at Bayerns build-up structure and positional play which secured them a 3-0 victory.

Lineups

Bayern Munich lined up in their usual 4-2-3-1 structure, with one of the double pivots often dropping into the back three in order to aid the build-up. Chelsea meanwhile lined up in a 3-4-2-1 and looked to use this structure to press Bayern effectively during their deep build-up.

Bayerns usual back three cause issues

Bayern used the back three to their advantage by dropping one of the pivots into the defence, something Bayern regularly do. Below we can see an example of a back four build-up, with the main disadvantage being that the coverage along the back line is poor. This means that the two centre-backs have to stay reasonably close together, as there are only two players covering this back line. If they go too wide, they risk passes being intercepted or taking too long to get to the intended target. Therefore, if the ball is switched to the other centre-back, they can be pressed easily and in this example, the passing lane to the full-back can be cut.

Here, however, we ca