To the excitement of the football fans around the globe, the winter break has come to and end and the Champions League is back. First day of the knockout phase brought us a huge clash between the dashing Manchester United and Paris Saint Germain, the best team in France. After sacking Jose Mourinho, the Red Devils appointed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who managed to regenerate the team’s chemistry which resulted in eleven straight matches without a loss.
The draw for the knockout stage paired the two “Goliaths” of modern football, after PSG finished first in group C ahead of Liverpool, Napoli and Red Star Belgrade, while Manchester squad ended the group stage in second place with only Juventus ahead of them.
Both teams struggled through the first phase of the Champions League – the Frenchmen due to a tough competition, and Mourinho’s boys because of their own poor form at the time.
The French champions that came to Old Trafford were not at their best, not in the sense of results, but rather not fully fit given the number of injured players. In their first knockout game they needed to fight for the win without the help of their pernicious attacking duo – Edinson Cavani and Neymar Junior.
As United’s atmosphere was glowing in the past few weeks, and PSG didn’t have a complete squad to compete with, the home team entered the match with a triumphant attitude. However, the match went in a completely opposite direction as Tuchel found a way to outplay them.
LINEUPS
Manchester United went into the match with an expected lineup on their side. The Norwegian picked Bailly over Jones, probably in order to adapt his defensive line to a light-legged striker PSG had in Mbappe. Lingard, Martial and Rashford in the front three gave him a speedy transition from defence to attack. Also, they posed as weapons in the pressing game high up the pitch.
PSG started with one of the only possible sides they could take out on the pitch because of all the injuries, which disrupted their original mindset. Tuchel’s idea was to double-team Martial on his right side, using Dani Alves as a winger and Thilo Kehrer as a right back. Even though the graphics say his team played in the 4-2-3-1 formation, that was their shape only when they were not in possession. When they were attacking, the squad transformed into a 3-4-2-1 with Alves and Bernat as wing-backs, who often went higher up the pitch and played as some sort of wingers so the team was then in a 3-2-2-3 shape.
After the hapless period he spent at Old Trafford, Angel Di Maria was back at the “crime scene” for the first time after his salvation by the oil-potentates. He and Julian Draxler occupied the gaps between United’s defensive and midfield lines as the inverted wingers in Tuchel’s formation. Presnel Kimpembe was the one paired in central defence with Thiago Silva, and the midfield was held by the recovered Verrati and the newly-created midfielder Marquinhos.
PSG’s EASINESS UNDER PRESSURE
Solskjaer’s team tried to high-press the opponent at the start of the game, believing that PSG isn’t as ready for high-tempo play as their squad is because a lot of players in their starting 11 weren’t completely fit. But, the Frenchmen were ready for the game their opponents prepared for them, so they easily coped with the way United set up.
From the start, the Red Devils’ problem was that they were not compact enough. This was caused by their desire not to let the speedy Mbappe a lot of free space in their own half, which prevented them from positioning their defensive line high up the pitch. That resulted in a huge gap between the pressing part of the squad – the front three players and Pogba and Herrera – and the defending side which included Matić and the back four.
PSG used that to break through the pressing with ease and to get comfortable 5v5 situations after they threw the front five players out of the game. An example can be seen in the picture below.
The room between Matić and the pressing players was big enough for Tuchel’s side to overflow it comfortably. Verrati’s ball protection was on an astonishing level, so the team progressed easily through Manchester United’s lines.
Even when Matić joined the pressing, PSG pulled him out of his position and provided space for the run-ins behind his back, since the defensive line wasn’t going to come closer because of their plan to keep Mbappe from getting free space to run into.
Marquinhos and Verrati used that as their advantage perfectly as they led their side to a lot of good opportunities in front of the opposing goal.
United’s initial idea didn’t work due to a cautious lining of their back four, so PSG got an advantage on which they didn’t count on in the first place.
TUCHEL’s MASTERCLASS SHUTS DOWN UNITED’s MIDFIELD
The German came into the game with a clear idea of how he wanted his team to play. Their main idea was to pester the opponents’ midfield trio and not allow them to deliver the ball into the final third easily. They were always on the midfielders’ back when they got ball, using the pass from Young/Shaw to the inside player as a pressing trigger.
Herrera, Matić and Pogba were forced to pass backwards, or forced to lose the ball in dangerous situations.
PSG was always near the “creative side” of United’s squad, so their time and space for maneuver were restricted. Marquinhos provided great support for his team, keeping the events on the pitch under control.
The key to success in this game for the French champions was isolating Pogba out of the game. He had a player in his immediate vicinity all the time, so the most creative player on the pitch was neutralized for Solskjaer’s side. Marquinhos was shadowing him from the moment he entered Old Trafford. Man-marking started from midfield, and continued all over the pitch.
Marquinhos marked Pogba closely wherever he moved, disrupting him even in the most simple motions.
Excluding
Pogba from the game left PSG only with the problem of Herrera, who
protected the ball very well in the first half, and managed to supply
the ball to his attackers a few times. Jesse Lingard also played a
key role, emptying the space for Rashford to run into, and confusing
Kimpembe and Bernat in terms of how they would defend the rotations
that took place in the half-spaces.
The injuries of Lingard and Martial made the game harder for Solskjaer, since he lost two players who could attack the free space, and had to put in Mata and Alexis, two players that play only when they have the ball in their possession. That eased the defending for the French squad, who could turn their minds to attack and overpower the home team.
THE GERMAN TACTICIAN’s PLAN DOMINATED THE PITCH
As we know, Tuchel is a mastermind, especially when it comes to attacking. His schemes and rotations were the ones he got known for ever since he was the head-coach of Borussia Dortmund.
Since Solskjaer let the away team have possession, the German coach used the tactical set up of the opponent as a weapon against them.
Even though PSG were defending in the 4-4-2 formation, the attacking structure of their team was more fluid and more of a 3-4-2-1. Draxler and Di Maria had a task to occupy the half-space pockets between United’s lines, which were a little bit spacious due to the caution of the defensive line caused by Mbappe’s speed.
Mbappe was less used in positional play. The main corridor through which Tuchel’s team played was the one Di Maria and Draxler were in. They tried to position themselves behind midfielders’ back, searching for their blind side and using it as their advantage. Since Bailly and Lindelof were careful about PSG’s number 7, they stood further off the Argentinian and the German, so the two of them had a lot more space to get comfortable in front of De Gea’s goal.
Pogba’s role in defense was as questionable as his offensive performance. He managed to forget his role in several situations and to miss out on marking the opponents’ attacking midfielders in his zone. The Frenchman was often a few steps behind the player he was in charge of – usually Di Maria and Draxler, but sometimes even Marquinhos – so they mostly had the advantage of an extra second to think what they were going to do, or to just run into empty space.
Di Maria and Draxler used a lot of motions to trick the opposition and confuse them, so they would open the pockets in their defense where the PSG players would run into.
In the second part of the game, PSG tried to exploit Ashley Young’s weaknesses in positioning which he had as a right back, so most of their attacks were on his side of the pitch. They occupied him with either Mbappe or Di Maria, who are both more agile than the Englishman, so they could easily have an extra man on their left side of attack. That resulted in plenty of chances, and with one ball behind De Gea’s back.
In the second half, Tuchel used inverted player positions in some situations. In the one leading to the second goal, Bernat was practically a midfielder, and Di Maria was in the outer channel as a wide winger occupying Ashley Young, United’s weakest defender.
Bernat confused Solskjaer’s midfield in terms of how to defend him, and sent a ball to Di Maria who easily coped with the pressure Young put on him. After a few dribbles, the Argentinian managed to find the space for the pass into the Red Devils’ box.
Mbappe tracked the action brilliantly and got away from his opponents to calmly beat De Gea.
Tuchel’s plan worked amazingly well and the absence of two of his best attackers wasn’t noticeable at all because of great performances from Di Maria and Draxler. Verrati and Marquinhos owned the pitch throughout the whole game, making the decisions for United’s midfield very difficult. Their gameplan in this match brought them in pole position for the next knockout round with the 2:0 away win.
CONCLUSION
This was the game in which Tuchel defeated Ole Gunnar in the tactical battle. The German coach got his team to play the way they prepared beforehand and overpowered United’s caretaker manager. Tuchel’s ideas easily beat Solskjaer and showed the world that Ole still has a lot to learn in order to compete with the world’s best tacticians.
PSG succeeded in their intention to shut down the links between the midfield and attacking line of Manchester’s side, making the distribution of the ball harder for the most creative players of their team. Pogba’s red card in the finishing minutes of the match rounded-up his bad performance for the evening. Without him, the English team will have an even smaller chance to overturn the result in the second leg.
Autor: Marko Jović
