Chelsea Women faced Bayern Munich Women at Kingsmeadow in the UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final second leg following the Blues’ 2-1 defeat at Munich, and the game ended with a huge 4-1 win for Chelsea who have qualified to the final for the first time ever. This match of the tournament will be between Chelsea and Barcelona, who excluded Paris Saint Germain in the semi-final to earn the right to compete with Chelsea for the European trophy at Gothenburg.
In this tactical analysis, we will explore Chelsea’s tactics to figure out how they succeeded in penetrating into Bayern’s defence several times to score four goals while also looking at the latter’s weaknesses in this match and what they did wrong to lose. The analysis will also include some statistics of both teams’ performances and their individual players’ impact.
Line-ups
Emma Hayes started the game with the 4-3-3 formation relying on Ann-Katrin Berger as a goalkeeper, Jessica Carter as a right-back instead of the injured Maren Mjelde, Millie Bright and Magdalena Eriksson as centre-backs with Jonna Andersson as a left-back. The midfield was formed of Sophie Ingle as a defensive midfielder, Ji So-yun and Melanie Leupolz as central midfielders while the front three were Fran Kirby on the right wing, Sam Kerr as a left winger and striker in some instances with Pernille Harder playing as a false nine.
Scheuer however switched to the 4-2-3-1 formation after using the 3-5-2 in the first leg, and he used Laura Benkarth as a goalkeeper, Hanna Glas, Amanda Ilestedt, Marina Hegering and Carolin Simon in defence, Sarah Zadrazil and Lina Magull as central midfielders with Klara Bühl and Lineth Beerensteyn as wingers and Sydney Lohmann playing as an advanced playmaker behind Lea Schüller, the team’s striker.
Chelsea’s attacking performance
Chelsea started the game with clear ideas; attacking immediately and putting a lot of pressure on Bayern’s defence. This was apparent since the first minutes of the match and we saw Chelsea having more possession throughout the match with an average of 58.61%. The blues were patient in circulating the ball and knew that Bayern have an organised defence, which meant that it was necessary for the attacking players to keep moving without the ball to create spaces for themselves and give the midfielders passing options.
This happened with continuously in Chelsea’s build up and we saw Kirby, Harder, Kerr and even Leupolz moving either towards a free space near the goal or coming near the ball holder to give her a solution. In this way, Chelsea was guaranteeing the possession of the ball while at the same time waiting for the adequate time to pass towards the box. The following picture explains what we have just mentioned since here Ji was holding the ball and had plenty of passing options even though she was in Bayern’s half. The most dangerous and smart choice was to cross the ball for Harder who was running towards the box and asking for the ball at the back of defenders, while at the same time Kirby was coming closer to Ji to give her an easy choice, Leupolz was on the same attacking line holding a defender from marking Harder, and Kerr was waiting on the left side as well.
