UEFA Champions League 2019/20: Olympiacos vs Tottenham Hotspur – tactical analysis

The UEFA Champions League is back. In the last season, Tottenham Hotspur achieved a remarkable result in this competition. They managed to enter the final without any new arrivals. Last summer, they spent big on Tanguy Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon to upgrade the squad. However, Ndombele was the only one of the new arrivals who was fit to start against Olympiacos Piraeus.

Tottenham are in the same group with Bayern Munich, Red Star Belgrade and Olympiacos. In the first round of fixtures, Tottenham were not good enough to secure three points in Greece. Mauricio Pochettino even accused his players of failing to respect his tactical plan. In this tactical analysis, we are going to show you the tactical battle between Olympiacos and Tottenham.

Lineups

Olympiacos have had a strong start this season; they won their previous eight games with a 4-2-3-1 formation. Pedro Martins used the same formation. Former French national team player Mathieu Valbuena and former Sporting CB centre back Rúben Semedo both started.

Pochettino rotated his squad. They also played in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Despite winning against Crystal Palace by four goals on the weekend, some players were benched. Heung-min Son, Moussa Sissoko, Erik Lamela, Serge Aurier and Danny Rose did not start. Lucas Moura, Dele Alli, Ndombele, and Davinson Sánchez and Ben Davies started instead.