Bayern’s 3-5-2: How Munich reduced Chelsea’s attacking threat in the Champions League – tactical analysis

Bayern Munich Women hosted Chelsea Women in the UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final and this first leg witnessed a very competitive match that ended with a 2-1 win for Bayern Munich which gives the advantage for the German team ahead of the second leg that will be played on May, 2 at Kingsmeadow stadium.

Sydney Lohmann opened the scoring at the 12^th minute, the former Bayern Munich and actual Chelsea’s player Melanie Leupolz succeeded in equalising for the Blues at the 22th minute before the Swedish Hanna Glas added a beautiful second goal for Bayern Munich.

In this tactical analysis we will break down both teams’ tactics to get further insight on why Chelsea were not as effective as in the past few matches in terms of attacking and how were Bayern Munich able to put on a strong and balanced performance while providing an analysis on Chelsea and Bayern Munich’s individual performances.

Line-ups

Jens Scheuer preferred to start the match with a 3-5-2, a formation that Bayern Munich did not use since the 2018/2019 season. This sudden change of tactical shape had its impacts on the game and we’ll shed more light on this below. Scheuer relied 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 Klara Bühl as strikers, leaving Lea Schüller on the bench.

On the other hand, Emma Hayes chose to go for the 4-1-3-2 formation with Ann-Katrin Berger as a goalkeeper, Jessica Carter as a right-back instead of the injured Maren Mjelde, Millie Bright and Sophie Ingle as centre-backs with Jonna Andersson as a left-back.

The midfield was formed of three players to give more security to defence and have more players in midfield to support the attack while keeping the balance. In attack, Melanie Leupolz remained more often in front of the defence as a defensive midfielder, while Ji So-yun was a bit more advanced and Guro Reiten played as a left midfielder who advanced quite often. While when out of possession, the three of them retreated to help in getting the ball back and avoiding Bayern Munich’s attacking threat. And upfront, Pernille Harder alternated between playing as a second striker alongside Sam Kerr and playing as an advanced playmaker at times, with Fran Kirby playing on the right wing.

How Bayern alleviated Chelsea’s attacking threat

Chelsea faced an intensive play from Bayern Munich since the start of this match and this created some problems for their attacking phase. Bayern Munich defended with aggressivity and with instant marking as soon as Chelsea’s players got the ball. Moreover, surrounding the ball holder with two or three players each time made passing options less concrete for Chelsea’s midfielders and attackers and enabled Bayern to intercept the ball more often. Bayern players intercepted the ball 52 times in this match while Chelsea made 34 interceptions, and these numbers highlight Bayern Munich’s superiority in closing down Chelsea’s players effectively in this game as it also means that this new 3-5-2 formation suited Bayern Munich from a defensive perspective and playing with the right mentality plus the required intensity enabled Bayern players to minimise Chelsea’s attacking danger.