What to expect from the German teams in the Champions League
The Champions League is back this midweek and all four German participants look very different to last season
Der Königsklasse. The King’s class. I’ve always really liked that this is how some in Germany refer to the Champions League. It’s sort of the unofficial, colloquial name for the competition and it feels like it really hits the spot.
Anyway, it’s just a quick one from me this week on that midweek competition we all know and love. As the Champions League gets back underway, I thought I’d write a little something on what to expect from the German clubs involved, especially as all four have changed coach since the end of last season.
Bayern Munich
So we start with Bayern, where Julian Nagelsmann hasn’t actually changed all that much.
I’m still not sure if we should be surprised by this or not. After all, almost none of his first choice players were available for pre-season and he has taken over a Bayern side that dominated the Bundesliga once again and probably would’ve made it further than ‘just’ the Champions League quarter-finals last season had Robert Lewandowski been fit to face PSG.
Maybe importing Marcel Sabitzer, fully familiar with Nagelsmann’s ways from his time at Leipzig, into the XI will accelerate the transition to more head-scratching formations. Or maybe Nagelsmann doesn’t think those mind-bending approaches are necessary when the team you’re in charge of is much more talented than basically any side you come up against?
Nagelsmann has tended to use a back three for most of his career so far, getting the absolute maximum out of physically gifted players who were not always as technically or tactically astute as the sort now at his disposal. This was a means to compete at the highest level possible but there is no longer a need for elaborate tactical plans.
With Bayern having, well, Bayern players, Nagelsmann has stuck to a 4-2-3-1 so far.
That isn’t to say Bayern aren’t tactically interesting or excellent. They are still both. The main difference to Hansi Flick’s side is probably the pressing, which is now much less gung-ho. Bayern were wide open defensively last season when their press was broken and Nagelsmann seems to have them pressing a bit lower on the pitch, making it easier to compress space. There’s also some asymmetry at fullback, with Alphonso Davies flying forward on the left (like before) as the right-back (Josip Stanišić to begin with, now Benjamin Pavard again) plays more conservatively.
There are, as there always are with Nagelsmann, plenty of fluid interchanges. Davies will overlap, stretching the opposition, but will also now underlap, bursting into spaces on the inside when the opposition have already been stretched across the pitch by the winger on the left. Leon Goretzka and Thomas Müller will also roam, with Müller in particular switching with the right winger to drag defenders out of position.
The build-up can be Guardiola-esque but it’s interesting to see Nagelsmann sides approach wide play in particular, not making the pitch literally as wide as possible, but always having a player on each flank just outside the widest opposition defender.
Bayern are rightly one of the favourites for the Champions League yet again.
RB Leipzig
Last season’s second-placed side in the Bundesliga and 2020 Champions League semi-finalists, Leipzig are at a bit of a crossroads.
They lost Timo Werner in 2020 and were left without a reliable goalscorer last season. Nagelsmann found a way around that with extreme width and by usually using a number of creative midfielders all with an eye for goal at once rather than a real number nine.
There is a ‘proper’ number nine again in the shape of André Silva but the club have, in the meantime, lost Nagelsmann, Marcel Sabitzer and Dayot Upamecano all to Bayern, plus Ibrahima Konaté to Liverpool.
New boss Jesse Marsch is keen to implement that classically Red Bull approach of pressing high and aggressively but that generally means deciding not to even attempt controlling games. That already looks like an issue at both ends of the pitch.
Last season the team completed under 420 passes in just four of 34 Bundesliga games. That number is already at three this season, just four games in. Marsch doesn’t care if his team is keeping the ball or completing passes, he wants them to get it forward quickly and scrap over loose balls in the middle and final thirds with the three behind the striker playing narrow and the central midfielders backing them up.
So far, it isn’t really working. Angeliño, who was so effective last season, is unlikely to be such an offensive threat when there’s less time for him to join attacks and less focus on pulling teams apart to create space for him to attack. Leipzig aren’t getting the most out of their hoard of creative midfielders and they don’t have the defenders, as long as Mohamed Simakan is still settling in, to cope with such a frantic game.
Playing in the Champions League, and against opponents who will want the ball and back themselves to win, could actually suit a side now less interested in dominating and more suited to making games frenetic, forcing mistakes and capitalising on them before their opponents have time to reorganise. A classic case of trying to bring better sides down to their level is probably Leipzig’s best bet for now … but it’s unlikely to be enough in a group with Manchester City and PSG.
Borussia Dortmund
Potential dark horses? In the form of Erling Haaland, Dortmund have a player who can almost single-handedly make a game against anyone a contest on his day. With Marco Rose now in charge, they have a coach who lifts the floor massively compared to Lucien Favre. Gone are the days of Dortmund bunkering in and hoping to cling on when they’re up against top opposition, welcome back to the team playing high octane football, attacking space, and making things really uncomfortable for the opposition.
Things haven’t gone that smoothly so far this season, though. Dortmund have conceded nine times in four Bundesliga games and Rose clearly isn’t satisfied with his side’s defending.
Away from Haaland, Jude Bellingham embodies Rose’s side and had one of his finest displays in a Dortmund shirt yet in Saturday’s 4-3 defeat of Bayer Leverkusen. The midfielder’s all-round ability massively enables Rose to line Dortmund up in the 4-diamond-2 formation he has opted for so far this season. He drives upfield in possession, he has a knack for arriving in the box at the right time and regular goals are just around the corner, he thunders into tackles and puts his body on the line to make clearances. He is the second holding midfielder for Dortmund’s diamond, but also a second striker. A central midfielder who drifts wide and combines with the right-back in the absence of a winger. And he has only just turned 18.
Dortmund enter most Champions League campaigns as unfancied dark horses but this year they might actually be that for the first time in a long time; Rose has ambitious plans to have BVB stretch the opposition with the ball and hassle them relentlessly without it. It’s the sort of approach that, unlike Lucien Favre’s much less ambitious football in big games, could see them punch above their weight and make the most of what is surely the club’s last season of Haaland.
VfL Wolfsburg
Mark van Bommel is the new man in charge, so it maybe shouldn’t be too surprising to learn that Wolfsburg have gone from being a typically German side to … sort of boringly Dutch?
Wolfsburg are looking to play slower, safer football than last season, having 60% possession in three of their four league games so far. It’s a figure they achieved in just seven of 34 matches in 2020/21. Off the ball, they don’t really press with much intensity anymore, going from 171 pressures per game last season to just 118 pressures per game this. And even the proportion of pressures in the middle and final thirds has gone down. When Wolfsburg lose the ball, it’s about protecting space more than it’s about winning it back.
It’s not exciting to watch. They managed 18 shots on the opening day but that came against a newly-promoted Bochum side who played over 85 minutes with 10 men. In their next three games they’ve taken just 12, 9 and 9 shots.
It’s actually working for now: they’re top of the Bundesliga. They are, in fact, the only side in the league to have won all four of the games so far. But it hasn’t been all that convincing and they won’t continue that sort of form with this sort of football.
In the Champions League they might have a puncher’s chance of qualifying, especially with the imperious Maxence Lacroix in defence, the excellent Ridle Baku on the right, the still-underrated Max Arnold providing a bit of everything in midfield and controversial vaccine-sceptic striker Wout Weghorst always a handful. But they don’t have the quality, nor (on the evidence we’ve seen so far) the tactical creativity, to threaten many sides in Europe’s premier club competition.