As the Champions League last-16 makes its long-awaited return, tactics expert Alex Keble previews the four remaining ties including some best bets.
This will probably be the least action packed of the four games, but what it will lack in technical quality will be more than made up in grit and edginess. Although Napoli have continued to play attractive possession football since Gattuso’s appointment in December, they now reflect the playing style of their manager; this is a determined, blood and guts team capable of digging in for a result. They work hard, compress space between the lines, and pride themselves on their resolve – losing just three of their last 19 games in all competitions.
And Gennaro Gattuso has merely built on the foundations already present in Naples. This is a team that took four points from Liverpool in the Champions League group stage this season, and under new management beat Inter Milan and Juventus on the way to their Coppa Italia triumph in June. They will fight for every ball at the Nou Camp, playing with solid defensive organisation.
These are not the qualities Barcelona will relish facing right now. The club are a shambles, fading badly as star players age and successive managers struggle to instil a clear tactical identity from the sidelines. They are drifting hopelessly, looking even worse under Quique Setien than Ernesto Valverde as Lionel Messi looks to do it all on his own.
This meandering quality, this purposelessness, could very easily be exposed by dogged and well-drilled opposition. Napoli have the upper hand both psychologically and tactically.
The first-leg result at Stamford Bridge should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Time and time again Bayern carved Chelsea open, breaking at speed through Frank Lampard’s horribly porous central midfield on numerous occasions before the deadlock was eventually broken in the second half. It was a hugely entertaining game, but sadly for Chelsea fans it was the sort of end-to-end battle that betrays their lack of tactical sophistication.
Lampard seems unable to get his team to compress space between the lines, leaving acres of space for opponents to walk through the middle of the pitch – a direct consequence of Chelsea attacking with careless freedom, stretching into whatever improvised shape they like when in possession. Dealing with attack-to-defence transitions was a problem in the first game of the season, a 4-0 defeat to Manchester United, and it was a problem in the last, when Pierre-Emerick Aubayemang scored the winning goal in the FA Cup final after Hector Bellerin ran 70 yards, unchallenged, through the middle of the pitch. Chelsea are not learning from their mistakes.
You don’t have to watch Bayern very closely to know Kingsley Coman, Robert Lewndowski, Alphonso Davies, and Serge Gnabry can terrorise Chelsea on Saturday. This game should be a repeat of the first leg, only worse, being at the Allianz Arena and with Lampard’s side already demoralised by the 3-0 score line.
Maurizio Sarri remains under pressure at Juventus despite lifting the Scudetto this month, having won Serie A with the lowest points tally of Juve’s nine-year winning streak and by conceding the most goals of any Italian champion since 1962.
The beautiful high-tempo passing football we saw at Napoli is yet to materialise as Sarri’s methods clash predictably with Cristiano Ronaldo’s stripped-down playing star. Juventus hired a collectivist to manage a club led by one of the game’s great individualists, and here are the results: stumbling over the line, one point above Inter Milan and with two wins in their final eight games.
Lyon are perfectly set up to make things worse for Sarri. Rudi Garcia will be happy to sit deep and play on the counter-attack, as he did in their 1-0 win in the first leg, forcing Sarri’s side into typically stagnant sideways passing and opening up space in behind the defence. More specifically, the Lyon manager has the perfect front two in Moussa Dembele and Memphis Depay to exploit a lack of pace in the Juve back line – and their on-going issues on the flanks.
Juventus struggle to cover the width of the pitch, frequently switching off to allow opposition wide men to overload the flanks and score (again, as Lyon managed in the first leg). This is especially true when Sarri’s side face wing-backs, who, supported by two strikers, are given licence to attack those weak full-backs. Each of Juve’s last three Serie A defeats came against 3-5-2 formations, the very system Lyon will deploy on Friday.
But Lyon could be let down by their lack of competitive action since March. A recent series of friendlies probably won’t have got them back to match fitness in time for this tie, which hands a key advantage to Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala, whose relationship has improved significantly since the restart now the Argentine is staying closer to Juve’s talisman. On home soil, these two have the explosive potential to out-manoeuvre the Lyon defence.
As ever, Zinedine Zidane’s Real have been functional but oddly without a transparent tactical philosophy throughout the 2019/20 season, and ultimately lifted the title in Spain by grinding out results through summer as Barcelona faltered. Their final points tally of 87 is hardly impressive, the result of a rapidly ageing midfield.
That should allow Man City to see out the second leg at the Etihad, even if predicting precisely how Pep Guardiola will organise his team is next to impossible. At the Bernabeu, he sprung a surprise by deploying Kevin de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva as false nines in a strikerless 4-4-2, confusing the Real defenders and allowing City to build into the final third by finding these two players in-between the lines. A similar approach could prove fruitful on Friday, given that Sergio Ramos – Real’s best defender at stepping out of the back line with authority – is suspended.
But a more conventional Guardiola system should also work. Their blistering form since the restart has been characterised not only by De Bruyne’s excellence but the calming presence of Ilkay Gundogan and Rodri together at the base of midfield. Anchoring a 4-2-3-1, they should ensure City can control this game against a sluggish Real side who cannot afford to sit back.
Zidane would probably like to sit in banks of four and counter through Eden Hazard and Vinicius Junior. Already 2-1 down, they won’t be able to play that way if Rodri and Gundogan are dominant in the middle – which points to a more even tussle, favouring the confident side in free-scoring form.
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