UWCL 2023/24: How PSG exploited Roma’s attacking and defensive weaknesses to get a big away win – tactical analysis

Roma Women hosted PSG Women on Wednesday night at Stadio Tre Fontane for the fourth fixture of the UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage, and the game ended with an essential and big 1-3 win for the visitors. PSG consolidated their second spot in Group C with six points, one point behind Ajax, one point ahead of Bayern Munich and two points ahead of Roma, who are actually at the bottom of the standings with only four points out of four games.

The Giallorosse were only able to beat Ajax at home but struggled to achieve other positive results in this group stage apart from an important draw against Bayern Munich in Germany. This means that Roma will have to be much more determined to win at least one of the two remaining games and wait for the other results in order to ensure a qualification ticket to the knockout stage.

This tactical analysis article will shed light on what helped PSG win this match and how they were more powerful than their opponent, especially from an attacking perspective. At the same time, the analysis will explore Roma’s errors and what they will have to work on in terms of tactics to achieve positive results in the remaining two fixtures.

Line-ups

Alessandro Spugna opted for the 3-5-2 for this match, and it appeared that this formation did not really help Roma effectively resist or win against PSG. He used Camelia Ceasar as a goalkeeper, Lucia Di Guglielmo, Elena Linari and Moeka Minami as centre-backs, Saki Kumagai as a defensive midfielder, Manuela Giugliano and Giada Greggi as central midfielders, Annamaria Serturini and Eseosa Aigbogun as wingers while Valentina Giacinti and Evelyne Viens formed the attacking duo.

On the other hand, Joselyn Precheur started the match with a 5-3-2 formation, a rather defensive and counter-attacking formation that was mostly successful in limiting Roma’s attacking efficiency, punishing them by exploiting their defensive errors, and applying high pressing at key moments. He used Katarzyna Kiedrzynek as a goalkeeper, Jade Le Guilly as a right-back, Clare Hunt, Thiniba Samoura and Élisa De Almeida as centre-backs, Sakina Karchaoui as a left-back, Grace Geyoro, Jackie Groenen and Sandy Baltimore as central midfielders, while former Inter Milan’s Tabitha Chawinga and Marie-Antoinette Katoto were the team’s two strikers.

Roma’s errors and needed improvements

Roma’s performance lacked concretisation in the final third, whether in terms of shooting on target or key passes and possible assists. This was caused by PSG’s excessive number of players inside the box and their continuous disturbance to Roma’s attacking players, plus the lack of concentration of Roma’s players when executing the final pass.

This following example highlights the importance of providing an accurate final pass in such key situations like this one where Serturini was not able to provide a key pass to Giacinti, who was waiting inside the box and was surprisingly unmarked, too. Serturini, however, failed to execute that final pass and made her team miss a big goalscoring opportunity.