A UCL Final Review: Through a Man City lens.
Euphoria in Istanbul as Manchester City complete a historic treble. After a long search, Pep Guardiola finally acquires the UEFA Champions League - The very first in the club's history.
Introduction:
June 10, 2023—Manchester City and Inter Milan encountered each other in a competitive match for the first time in their rich histories. They met in the biggest occasion club football has on offer. For the most prestigious prize available to Europe’s elite level clubs, the UEFA Champions League.
After a narrow 1-0 win, Pep Guardiola had finally ‘finished the job’ and achieved his mission in Manchester. Winning the competition was no easy feat—dispatching the likes of RB Leipzig, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and fending off an Inter Milan underdog fight in the final.
The final was a very cagey game. From the perspective of Man City, they were a very nervy and edgy variant of their usual selves—starting off sloppy and careless in possession. This ultimately gave Inter confidence, to take the game to City. The match remained cagey throughout and was eventually defined by a Rodri staple; a clutch goal to define a title outcome.
This article will be a tactical breakdown. Focusing on the out of possession and in possession conceptions and how they counteracted Inter Milan’s game plan. This is the UCL final, zoomed in through a Manchester City coloured lens.
A Tactical Breakdown - Out of Possession Concepts:
Early on in the game, it was clear Pep Guardiola conducted his homework on Inter Milan (obviously). This is evidenced through the out of possession structure to offset the Inter build up.
Francesco Acerbi was and has been a pivotal player for Inter when building up. Despite utilising a 5-3-2 as an out of possession block, Inter implemented a 4-2-2-2 in possession. Acerbi was at the heart of this system, who often travelled from CB position into midfield to form a double pivot with Marcelo Brozovic—this has been a reoccurring pattern throughout Inter’s previous games in the season.
Simone Inzaghi further used Acerbi in this way throughout the final. With Acerbi drifting into midfield to form a box midfield with Brozovic, Barella and Çalhanoğlu—Inter’s shape resembled a 4-2-2-2 when in possession.
This shape was ploy by Inzaghi to try and utilise verticality to play through an inevitable Man City aggressive press, which rarely came. You see, Inter are exceptional through the centre and rely on vertical lanes to be open in order to penetrate the lines to release their midfield runners; Barella and Çalhanoğlu in particular. Hence why Inter excel against predominantly bigger teams who have more confidence to press higher up the pitch.
Therefore, Inter’s game plan relied heavily on City being aggressive out of possession—to open up and leave space between the lines so they can play direct and unlock their central runners. These runners would have the upper hand against Rodri/Gundogan who don’t cover space well. In layman’s terms, it would be suicidal for City to be over aggressive in their initial press.
And Pep Guardiola knew this…
Manchester City began the game fairly passive and conservative in their structure out of possession. It was evidently clear that Pep didn’t want to have the game play exactly into Inter’s hands and therefore City were not over aggressive in their press.
Deploying their trademark 4-2-4 out of possession shape, City committed to low engagement with Inter’s backline. Setting up with a front 4 that positioned itself in front of the Inter double pivot, utilising cover shadows of Haaland and De Bruyne to cut off central supply into the central players—immediately nullifying the Inter Milan tendency to bait the press of oppositions and penetrate lines of play with precision and speed.
Among this front 4 for City, the small distances between the forwards discouraged Inter any form of central progression into their box midfield. Grealish and Bernardo tucked in narrow to block the passing lanes to the advanced 8’s of Inter; Barella and Çalhanoğlu. Meanwhile, as mentioned before—Haaland and De Bruyne man marked the double pivot, denying the passing option into this pivot base; Consisting of Acerbi and Brozovic.
By purposefully denying this central breakthrough, Man City systemically forced Inter to play wide by any means; Whether it be a simple pass to the CBs or a long aerial ball to the wing backs.
Whenever Onana played to the CBs, the ball travelling was a cue to the City forwards to spring a pressing trap. The Inter pivot remained man marked, however the City wide forwards would use outward curvature runs to press the nearest CB in possession. This curved run would block any outward pass to the wing back, coercing Inter to play back inwards towards their own backline.
In the upcoming clip, the ball is played to Bastoni from Acerbi. Whilst the ball is travelling, that is the signal for Bernardo to begin the curved run. The outward curvature of this run forces Bastoni to instantly go back inside. Acerbi’s body language then forces the second pressing trigger, Acerbi facing Darmian automatically closes off the return pass back to Bastoni—meaning a pass has to be made to Darmian. Bernardo continues his run across the Inter defence. Realising Inter have trapped themselves in one quadrant of their half, the full City team can execute a more aggressive press. Lacking options, Dumfries is forced to go long and loses possession—leading to a turnover.
Another option Inter exploited was the long ball switch to the wing backs (Dumfries/Dimarco). Due to lack of options in the build up, Inter were occasionally made to execute these long balls however were mostly unsuccessful.
This was due to long balls being a big gamble, a gamble City were willing to risk to succeed. When these long balls were committed, John Stones and Nathan Ake would immediately press the wing backs involved and attempt to win aerial duels.
Man City’s defensive makeup consisted of 4 natural CBs—this inherently meant that all defensive players had a tall, physical frame and had the most experience in winning such aerial duels. Therefore, this made the long ball situations considerably in favour of being won by the City defenders which helped them regain possession.
With Inter wanting to go long to skip phases of play, this added additional strain on the need for the City backline to win their duels. A large part of this was Ruben Dias, assigned a hard role of dealing with Edin Dzeko. Nonetheless, he coped well.
City had their problems out of possession, it was not a walk in the park…
Despite successes out of possession, Bernardo Silva and Jack Grealish were very jumpy, aggressive and over committed occasionally. Being positioned higher up vacated big portions of spaces in wide areas. If these spaces were exploited, this could give Inter an attacking edge.
This is evident throughout the game, Dumfries and Dimarco were by far the most threatening players for Inter, With the absence of Kyle Walker in the City line-up, this created a dilemma in which City were constantly struggling to contain the wing backs, a lack of recovery pace made these moments more scary from a City point of view.
They had to weather the storm in numerous moments throughout the match and the gladiator-esque defence helped them achieve this.
Man City’s out of possession structure worked for the most part, containing a dangerous Inter side and blocking central progression. Despite suffering troubling moments, City enjoyed great of out of possession success which assisted in a victory for Pep Guardiola and his blues.
A Tactical Breakdown - In Possession Concepts:
When a big UCL occasion comes arrives, many City fans hope Pep Guardiola has not overthought his game plan—to stick to what has worked. However, what if I was to tell you Pep did overthink his in possession strategy but this time, it worked.
You see, contrary to popular belief—Pep did change his system to thwart Inter’s 5-3-2 block. Throughout their run towards achieving the treble, Pep insisted with his identifiable 3-2-2-3 system.
However in the final, Pep deviated away from this system. Instead opting for a 3-4-3 diamond.
There’s many reasons for this formation being deployed by Pep Guardiola. The 3 CB base still offers its advantages of numerical superiority against an Inter block, with Inter engaging with 2 forwards, the 3 CBs can progress the ball better through the first phase of play.
Inter consistently utilise a 3 midfield block. The 4 man diamond for City allows a 4vs3 in the centre, offering additional passing options to the CBs when the ball is progressed into the next phase of play.
The main distinguishable difference was the assignment given to John Stones.
Rather than inverting into a double pivot base with Rodri, Stones played as an auxiliary 8/RCM and operating in the right half space.
To understand why John Stones was so pivotal in this game, you have to look at the last line of Inter’s defensive block.
As it happens, Inter play with a 5 man defence when out of possession. City have struggled occasionally against 5 man defences this season and that’s because City previously didn’t have numerical superiority in the last line to make an impact due to their attacking 5 matching up against opposition’s 5 man defences.
Somehow, Pep Guardiola had to find away to create 6vs5 situations in the Inter backline. This is where John Stones comes in…
John Stones occupying the right half space in possession manipulated the Inter backline. See, Pep Guardiola most likely noted the reoccurrence of the Inter wide centre backs (Darmian/Bastoni) to press aggressively and jump out at the midfielders who occupied half space positions.
In this next clip, Gundogan takes up a position in the left half space. With Darmian being very aggressive, he jumps out at Gundogan. The space he vacates when pressing Gundogan is then exploited by Haaland.
Another unusual appearance in the final was the use of a ‘Shadow Striker’ by Pep Guardiola who began the game with Kevin De Bruyne taking up the role. The use of this shadow striker was to roam behind Erling Haaland in the last line and act as the ‘free man’ in the 6vs5.
Throughout the game, Inter’s 5 man defence all had a player they had to occupy. Francesco Acerbi had the difficult task of dealing with Haaland, the wide centre backs pressed the City 8’s and both Inter wing backs were stretched wide by City’s wingers. This left the shadow striker as the free man and was given the opportunity to exploit vacated space in the Inter defence.
In this clip, Darmian once again commits to pressing Gundogan in the left half space which leads to an instantaneous clipped ball into Haaland. Acerbi fails to win the duel with Haaland and a knock down into the vacated space left by Darmian results in the shadow striker (De Bruyne in this case) running into it.
If De Bruyne hadn’t slipped, who knows what the outcome of this opportunity was…
Talking about De Bruyne; it was incredibly unfortunate that he yet again suffered an injury in a UCL final. With the injury forcing Pep Guardiola’s hand and substituting De Bruyne for Phil Foden, it seemed (from a tactical perspective) that this was a blessing in disguise.
Due to De Bruyne taking up the shadow striker role behind Haaland, it was simple for Pep to do a like for like swap and introduce Foden into this role. However, despite seeming like a reduction in quality—Foden in this role actually propelled City’s attacking capabilities to new levels.
Why? Phil Foden’s body.
You see, Foden’s body is drastically different to De Bruyne. Foden is smaller and leaner than De Bruyne, this enabled Foden to have a low centre of gravity, better ball manipulation and increased manoeuvrability/agility in tighter areas.
Foden is therefore better with his back to goal and inviting opposition pressure as he could evade this pressure much better than De Bruyne, who is better facing the goal.
This is ever so present in this clip:
Maybe Foden will become accustomed to this role in future years, with an ageing De Bruyne—City may have their plan for life without him.
Lets talk about that goal:
As Manuel Akanji drives forward with the ball, Bernardo Silva makes a penetrative run through the Inter defence. In a split second and recognising the run, Akanji orchestrates a clear chance with a splitting ball through the Inter defence.
However, for Akanji to even have the ball here wasn’t a freak coincidence. This was planned.
It was really tough because Kyle is so important for us but for the way we want to defend and attack we need another type of player, that is the only reason why - Pep Guardiola
That’s right, Akanji playing RCB had a purpose. Notably to allow Nathan Ake back into the team and ensure City had natural left footed passing angles on the left.
However, Akanji is an extensive progressive footballer. The way he carries the ball and the way he passes the ball, shows he has progressive intent on the ball. Kyle Walker is a lot more of a conservative passer, doesn’t risk losing possession due to his technical attributes lacking behind his peers.
With Inter deploying a stubborn structure out of possession, it was essential City had technicians to break such a block down. Akanji is as much of a technician you could possibly have and he played a part in finally unravelling this Inter defence.
During my pre-match analysis I noted the possible event of a cutback goal or a long shot from the edge of the box. The reason why I noted this was because I noticed that Inter actually defended their box similarly to how Leeds defended against us.
As Bernardo and other forwards made them penetrative runs into the box, Inter stacked their box, overloaded it with players by regrouping their defence. The only problem with this, it leaves a void of space towards the edge of their area for a free shot on goal.
A player with exceptional intelligence, instinct and ball striking could take advantage of this. Against Leeds it was Gundogan, to complete the treble in Istanbul—Rodri
In the end, The UEFA Champions League is a competition of moments. Every team creates their moments to win the game but whoever takes them moments, will win the game.
Moving players around on a tactics board is like moving pawns on a chessboard, every action has a purpose and intent to win the game.
But we don’t want football to become chess, football has moments and fairy tale stories that a game of chess can’t replicate. Although this is a tactical breakdown, in 30 years people wont remember how Phil Foden changed the game…
All that will be remembered, is that final screenshot. That moment that immortalises Manchester City in the archives until the end of time.
That night in Istanbul, elation and relief. Champions of Europe, we know what we are.
Thanks, AP.