In this UEFA Champions League campaign, Group A is the group of death as it contains Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, and RB Leipzig. But people forget about the Jupiler Pro League 2020/21 winner, Club Brugge.
Philippe Clement’s side started the season by winning the Belgian Super Cup.
In Europe, they shocked everyone by earning four valuable points against PSG and Leipzig despite having fewer star players.
Furthermore, their xGA against PSG (0.76) and Leipzig (0.99) were very impressive, so what’s the secret behind their good results?
This tactical analysis is a scout report that focuses on Clement’s defensive tactics, and how his principles of play helped the Belgian side to limit the best attackers in the world.
Midblock and pressing
One thing that separated Brugge and normal underdogs were the height of the defensive lines. Even though they are the weaker side on paper, the players would not be happy to “park the bus” by playing everyone behind the ball. Instead, they pushed the block and last line into the central third and defended in higher areas.
Although Brugge might not be pressing with an extremely high line in the offensive third, they would try their best to keep the opposition in one vertical half. Once the ball gets there, they would have numbers to close those flank spaces. Therefore, the job of the lone striker was to use his body angle to block the passing lane between centre-backs, as shown by Charles De Ketelaere above.
Brugge defended with a 4-2-3-1 shape initially, with the attacking midfielder (Hans Vanaken) to close the opposition holding midfielder. If the number eight dropped to overload Vanaken, Brugge would react by using the defensive midfielder to press close to the body as Éder Balanta did here. Meanwhile, the other midfielder should go inner to cover his teammates.
