Bayern 1-1 Chelsea : Chelsea win it on penalties
The starting line-ups
Chelsea lifted the European Cup after a tight match was decided on penalties.
Jupp Heynckes named his expected line-up: Diego Contento came into
the side at left-back, Antoliy Tymoshchuk played at centre-back, with
Toni Kroos deep in midfield, allowing Thomas Muller a start in the
attacking role.
Roberto Di Matteo’s line-up featured one surprise name – Ryan
Bertrand was given his Champions League debut on the left side of
midfield, meaning Florent Malouda was only on the bench.
The tactical battle didn’t really go Chelsea’s way – but the penalty shoot-out did.
Possession
As expected, Bayern saw more of the ball, although their first half
domination was very slightly less than the 60-65% predicted in the
preview. In a strange way, Chelsea’s attacks might have been more
dangerous had that figure increased – Bayern weren’t committing huge
numbers forward into the final third or piling on the pressure, and
therefore Chelsea didn’t have many spaces to break into. Credit should
go to Bayern for this, though – the full-backs were reserved and Didier
Drogba wasn’t a huge force upon the game until late on.
Midfield battle
Often, games where one side sits deep and allows the opposition onto
them don’t really have a ‘midfield battle’ – one side is letting the
other dictate the play, and focus upon getting men behind the ball.
This was slightly different, however. Di Matteo’s decision to go with a 4-2-3-1, rather than
the 4-3-3 he used against Barcelona
(although really, this was 4-4-1-1 and 4-5-1 respectively, considering
that Chelsea spent the majority of the time without the ball) was
crucial. Instead of having three defensive-minded midfielders, the
absence of Raul Meireles meant he only had two: Frank Lampard and John
Obi Mikel. Juan Mata was higher up, in a natural number ten position,
and only half-heartedly helped out defensively.
There were two reasons that Mata didn’t concentrate on getting
goalside of Bayern’s midfielders. First, the fluidity of Kroos and
Bastian Schweinsteiger caused him problems – when Mata dropped onto
one, that man would stay in position and allow the other forward – Mata
often found himself unable to occupy the right player at the right
time. Second, Di Matteo probably told Mata to stay in space, in
positions where he could receive the ball and prompt breaks, a little
like Shinji Kagawa did against Bayern last weekend in the German Cup
final. Mata found this difficult, however, and with Bayern’s full-backs
staying quite deep and Chelsea’s wingers not able to break past,
Chelsea’s transitions weren’t very effective.
Muller
Muller was the game’s key player. As mentioned in
the preview,
when played as the number ten Muller tends to drift right. This was
probably partly the reason Di Matteo chose to field a defensive-minded
player on the left wing, in order to give Ashley Cole more protection
if Muller tried to overload him.
But although Muller was right-of-centre, he didn’t have to move out
to the right wing because he found a little pocket of space to work in.
With Frank Lampard playing slightly higher up than Jon Obi Mikel, the
biggest area of space between Chelsea’s lines was perfect for Muller,
and he continually picked up the ball in behind Lampard.
Chelsea were particularly vulnerable when their two problems [(a)
one of the deep midfielders bursting forward unchecked and (b) Muller
getting space] combined. Once in the first half, for example, Mikel was
dragged across towards Muller, which then left his zone bare, so
Schweinsteiger stormed into it and had an attempt from a left-centre
position.
Bertrand’s other task, to help Cole defend against Robben, broadly
worked. The Dutchman may have had 15 (!) attempts on goal in the 120
minutes, more than Chelsea, but the majority came when he was
off-balance, and when he had been shepherded into a pack of Chelsea
players. Chelsea’s ability to block shots was unbelievable – they
blocked over half of Bayern’s 43 attempts, partly as they defended so
narrow.
Transitions
Nothing really went right for Chelsea in an attacking sense, though
– Mata struggled to prompt counters, Drogba found himself outnumered
and when he peeled away onto Philipp Lahm to try and use his aerial
advantage, the delivery from the right was poor. Chelsea also failed to
win a corner until the final moments, so set-pieces wasn’t a productive
source of chances, while long balls from Petr Cech generally found
Tymoshchuk nipping in front of Drogba and Jerome Boateng covering
behind him.
The game didn’t really progress in tactical terms – the only
substitution before Bayern’s goal was
