UEFA Women’s Champions League 2021/2022: How Barcelona killed Wolfsburg 5-1 in the semi-final first leg – tactical analysis

Barcelona Women faced Wolfsburg Women in the UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final and this first leg witnessed a huge and deserved 5-1 win for the locals who played at Camp Nou with 91,648 supporters present at the stadium, breaking their own attendance record in a women’s game which was 91,553 during their match against Real Madrid Women.

To put things into their context, Barcelona qualified from the group stage phase top of the group after battling with Arsenal, Hoffenheim and HB Køge and then they were put in a direct confrontation with their Spanish rival, Real Madrid, in the quarter-finals.

Barcelona won the tie deservedly with 8-3 on aggregate to find themselves in the semi-finals against Wolfsburg. The Blaugrana didn’t show any signs of worry or stress during this first leg as they were able to score five goals against an experienced team without conceding too much. Nevertheless, the team could have done better on certain aspects and we will come to that later in the article.

On the other side, Wolfsburg were not given easy opponents either since they were drawn into a group formed of Juventus, Chelsea and Servette, one of this season’s most difficult groups. Yet, they were able to qualify on top of their group with the same number of points as Juventus and Chelsea but with superiority in terms of goal difference.

Afterwards, Wolfsburg encountered Arsenal in the quarter-finals and were able to turn the tables on them in Germany after they drew 1-1 at the Emirates Stadium. Being able to knockout a team like Arsenal from the competition was a great accomplishment for Wolfsburg this season even though they are historically used to reaching semi-finals and finals regularly. Removing Arsenal from the competition paved the way for them to meet Barcelona in the semi-finals with a lot of confidence knowing that Wolfsburg knocked Barcelona out of the UWCL in 2019/2020’s semi-final.

However, Wolfsburg didn’t cope with Barcelona’s excellent attacking actions and playing system in this first leg and are now obliged to score at least four goals without conceding any if they plan on qualifying for the final. Although this doesn’t sound doable for many followers of the game, Wolfsburg proved during the past few seasons that they can do such achievements and the examples were many. But at the same time, Barcelona’s current form won’t make things easy for Wolfsburg as this team is able to score at any time given their excellent playmaking abilities.

In this tactical analysis article, we will be exploring Barcelona’s excellent attacking performance and tactics to analyse how they were able to penetrate into Wolfsburg’s penalty box so often while analysing Wolfsburg’s unconvincing performance both from an attacking and a defensive perspective.

Line-ups

Barcelona Women started this game with their usual 4-3-3 formation using Sandra Paños as a goalkeeper, Marta Torrejón, Irene Paredes, María León and Fridolina Rolfö in defence, Aitana Bonmatí, Patricia Guijarro and Alexia Putellas as central midfielders, Caroline Graham Hansen and Ana-Maria Crnogorčević on the wings and Jennifer Hermoso as a striker.

On the other side, Wolfsburg opted for the 4-2-3-1 formation with Almuth Schult as a goalkeeper, Joelle Wedemeyer, Kathrin Hendrich, Dominique Janssen and Felicitas Rauch in defence, Lena Lattwein and Alexandra Popp as central midfielders, Svenja Huth and Sveindís Jane Jónsdóttir on the wings with Jill Roord playing as an advanced playmaker just behind the striker, Tabea Waßmuth.

Barcelona’s attacking performance

Barcelona didn’t think twice before attacking Wolfsburg’s final third with their full weight. They were aware of their abilities in terms of quick and accurate passing in that area as well as their intelligent movements with and without the ball. The team relied a lot on Hansen, Crnogorčević and Rolfö since these players are known to be excellent in penetration, dribbling past opponents and finishing. What is even more impressive is playing Rolfö as a left-back in order to have a double attacking weapon on the left wing. This aspect was exploited very well by allowing Rolfö to advance so often and make Crnogorčević lean towards the box in order to have more players inside the box and leave more space for the Swedish player on the left-wing. As you can see in this picture, Rolfö was able to cut inside several times in this match, creating a lot of danger either by aiming for a shot or by passing to one of her teammates, while Crnogorčević often moved to the box asking for the ball and keeping a defender marking her.