UWCL 2023/24: How BK Häcken punished Paris FC while limiting their attacking threats – tactical analysis

Paris FC suffered from a frustrating defeat against the Swedish BK Häcken in the first fixture of the UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage. In contrast, BK Häcken secured their first important win away at the Stade Charléty in a group that includes Paris FC, Chelsea and Real Madrid. Knowing that this might be the most powerful and complicated group in the group stage, Häcken’s win in an away fixture against a tough team like Paris FC gets more value and can represent an excellent start for the Swedish, especially if they succeed in keeping their good run of form going during the next difficult fixtures of the UWCL.

On the other side, Paris FC should surely focus on studying what went wrong in this match and try to fix it in order to avoid losing more points against tougher teams like Chelsea and Real Madrid. In order to achieve this, Paris FC will definitely have to make extra efforts and give more than 100% in each of the upcoming games to start winning valuable points, knowing that their level is a bit lower than Chelsea and Real Madrid.

To make up for this loss, Paris FC will have to win against Häcken in the away game in Sweden since that match is the most suitable opportunity for winning points in comparison with the other remaining games. But at the same time, winning against Häcken in Sweden will not be an easy task for Paris FC, and they will clearly have to work hard and avoid underestimation to be able to snatch a win.

Things are not actually going as planned for Paris FC, but they showed on numerous occasions before that they can create surprises even against big teams. The best example of this is their exclusion of teams like Arsenal and Wolfsburg in the preliminary phase of the tournament.

In this tactical analysis article, we will be exploring what happened in this match while studying both teams’ tactics and line-ups. The analysis will also aim to identify Paris FC’s weaknesses and what they lacked in their performance to win this match while also considering Häcken’s strengths and how they scored two goals without conceding more than a penalty.

Line-ups

Sandrine Soubeyrand started this opening group stage match with the usual 4-2-3-1 formation using Chiamaka Nnadozie as a goalkeeper, Julie Soyer as a right-back, Célina Ould Hocine and Théa Gréboval as centre-backs, and Lou Valérie Bogaert as a left-back. The midfield comprised Daphné Corboz and Kaja Korošec positioned as central midfielders, Clara Matéo and Julie Dufour on both wings. At the same time, Gaëtane Thiney played as an advanced playmaker just behind the striker Mathilde Bourdieu.

On the other hand, Mak Adam Lind opted for the 4-2-3-1 formation as well, with Jennifer Falk as a goalkeeper, Saara Katariina Kosola as a right-back, Josefine Rybrink and Aivi Luik as centre-backs and Elma Novah Junttila-Nelhage as a left-back. In midfield, Lind used both Marika Bergman-Lundin and Filippa Curmark as central midfielders, Anna Anvegård and Anna Sandberg on the wings, and Rosa Kafaji as a playmaker behind the team’s striker, Aisha Masaka.

Häcken’s exploitation of Paris FC’s weaknesses

Häcken’s performance was characterised by patience and exploitation of Paris FC’s mistakes, especially the defensive ones. Concretisation in attack and defensive resistance to Paris FC’s recurrent attacks were the keys to Häcken’s surprising win over the French side. Häcken conceded 21 shots from Paris FC during this match, with seven of them being on target. Yet, they were still able to avoid conceding goals thanks to their compact defending.

Also, whenever Paris FC succeeded in breaking Häcken’s defensive line, Falk was always ready to get out of her goal and intercept the ball before Paris FC’s attacking players got the time needed to control and shoot on goal. This helped Häcken immensely in reducing Paris FC’s attacking danger, as Falk always covered the distance left between the defensive line and the goalkeeper with the right timing.