Match Focus: Differing Defences Set the Tone in Der Klassiker
The Signal Iduna Park was its usual buoyant self on Saturday evening, but that’s a given. Ten years ago, on this correspondent’s first trip to the famous stadium, it was much the same; not a spare seat in the house and not a minute’s peace for one’s eardrums, even though Borussia Dortmund were days away from a humiliating UEFA Cup thrashing from Sochaux and less than two years ago from a near-fatal financial collapse.
For Der Klassiker – which, remember, Dortmund hadn’t lost in the previous 6 Bundesliga meetings – there was a slight tempering of the usual brio that accompanies Jürgen Klopp’s side, on and off the pitch. The club's CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke captured the mood, saying before the game in an interview to Ruhrnachrichten that Dortmund could “never speak of a duel on level terms”.
Six months on from the Champions League final at Wembley, the competition between the two has been active in the opening months of the season, keeping hope alive of a prolongation of a rivalry to reprise Borussia Möenchengladbach’s struggles with Bayern Munich in the 1970s and to grip European football as a whole. This result, however, means Dortmund have a fight on their hands to prolong it into the New Year.
It was important for Dortmund to register a strong display here to counter the sense that the worm was turning. In the five meetings between the sides
in all competitions last season, they didn’t win once, with Bayern winning in the DFL Super Cup, the DfB Pokal and, of course, the Champions League final, even if Klopp’s side did win back the Super Cup in the summer.
The spectre of that night at Wembley was still here, from the moment Bayern’s fans unfurled a banner of the famous old trophy in red with the words “Still looking for this?” underneath. As the night unfolded, one wondered whether Mario Götze, who moved south after the final, was a comparable prize, as he made a huge impact as substitute. Vilified by the home supporters on his return, he opened the scoring with a fine finish and finished with a rating of 7.39, a big improvement on the 6.46 posted by Mario Madzukic, who he replaced.
Götze's departure might not have been the deal breaker in the rivalry that it initially felt like in the aftershock of the transfer's announcement, but his ability to affect the game from the bench swung this one in a way that Klopp's own pinch-hitter, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, was later unable to do in the way he had in the Super Cup.
It always seemed like Bayern’s attacking tools – even minus Franck Ribéry, by far and away their star of the season with a WhoScored average rating of 8.44 – could win the day against a patched-up home defence. Manuel Friedrich, who hadn’t played a competitive game since leaving Bayer Leverkusen in the summer, debuted, while young Erik Durm was pressed into service at right-back. None of the Champions League starting back four were in the first XI, though Lukasz Piszczek made a surprise return on the bench after a serious hip injury.
The psychological effect on Dortmund was significant. It was as much Dortmund's self-consciousness in harbouring a makeshift defence as the substance of the backline itself that conditioned their approach to the game.
We know Dortmund like to counter and they have done so effectively in some key games this season, including in excellent wins at Schalke and Arsenal. Yet both games saw Klopp's men employ a pressing game - albeit to differing extents - that simply wasn't as intense here.
The defence set the tone. Marshalled by Sokratis (by far the match's leading tackler, with 7), the four attempted to stick together as tightly as possible, with full-backs Kevin Großkreutz and Erik Durm advancing far less than Dortmund's players usually would in those positions, as WhoScored's average position map shows.
Credit must go to Bayern for this, of course. They seized on these wide weaknesses, with both Rafinha and David Alaba taking their chances to progress towards halfway, though they were hardly wanton, with the wide men in front of them really holding the keys to the game. With Franck Ribéry absent, Arjen Robben switched to the left and Thomas Müller patrolled the right, and they were Bayern's most advanced players on the night. It was clearly Guardiola's plan to aggressively pursue what he perceived to be the home side's weak spots.
In essence, the whole Dortmund team was deeper, with Marco Reus required to help Durm on the left and Henrikh Mkhitaryan only slightly more advanced than Nuri Sahin in midfield. Only Robert Lewandowski and the hyperactive Jakub Blaszczykowski occupied average positions in advance of the halfway line. If we compare this with the match at the Emirates, up to six of the Dortmund players occupied average positions in the Arsenal half, despite commanding just 43% of possession. In a more typical recent home game, against Stuttgart, there were an average of five Schwarzgelben in the visitors' half of the field.
Bayern's comparative level of control in defence is clear in the fewer number of tackles they made and the greater number of interceptions. The whole back four combined made less tackles than Sokratis (6, to his 7), reflecting the last-ditch nature of many of the Greek international's contributions. Yet the visitors' ability to win the ball higher up the pitch spoke of greater energy and tighter organisation.
Surprisingly Toni Kroos, the most creative of Bayern's three central midfielders, made 3 tackles, adding to Javi Martínez's 2 and Philipp Lahm's 1. The trio made 5 interceptions between them as well. Their far-greater pass accuracy of 88%, 92% and 94% respectively, compared to Mkhitaryan, Sahin and Sven Bender (70%, 82% and 65% respectively) was crucial in influencing the result.
What has to be taken into account with Martínez’s figures is that they were conditioned by his playing the final 26 minutes of normal time at centre-back, having been moved into the defence after Thiago Alcántara replaced Jerome Boateng.
In his way, Thiago was as much of an impact sub as Götze, setting up Robben’s clinching goal with a fine cross-field pass. It went back to Watzke’s point about comparative riches. One feels, however, that Dortmund didn’t suit being so self-conscious about it.
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