In what was expected to be the match of the season, Thomas Tuchel’s Borussia Dortmund finally ended their rut of the winless streak against Bayern by beating the Bavarians 1:0 at the Signal Iduna Park. The win helps them climb to the third spot, while Bayern climbs down to the second spot due to Leipzig’s victory at the weekend.
Thomas Tuchel lined up with an unfamiliar 5-3-2 formation. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang started alongside Adrian Ramos who was chosen ahead of new signing Ousmane Dembele. More unfamiliar were the roles of Mario Gotze and Andre Schurrle, both of whom started as central midfielders behind Julian Weigl as the lone pivot.
For Bayern Munich, with the absence of Chilean midfielder Arturo Vidal, Joshua Kimmich got the nod ahead, starting alongside Thiago Alcantara in the middle behind defensive midfielder Xabi Alonso. Out of sorts German forward Thomas Muller started the game on the right with Franck Ribery, come back from injury to act as the left winger, providing support to Robert Lewandowski.
The first phase of the game saw Dortmund playing off Bayern with intense pressure in the opposition half. Thomas Tuchel mastered a very nice scheme to prevent his Bavarian opponents rule the game in the first quarter. Midfielders Mario Gotze and Andre Schurrle’s peculiar roles were actually quite significant in BVB’s pressing game. Both of them began to put pressure to the opposition playmakers. Mario Gotze in particular, was quite pivotal as he drove into the middle in Dortmund’s pressing phases and there he switched between covering Thiago or Xabi Alonso. Doing this, however, meant Borussia Dortmund giving away acres of space on the right-hand side (since Gotze declined to move there), where one would generally expect Ribery to exploit. But the Frenchman failed to use the space and drove into the middle himself.
While Dortmund’s collective midfield pressing prevented Bayern’s flow in the middle, Thomas Tuchel already knew that his team can’t press with the same intensity for the whole ninety minutes but to his fortune, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang found the go-ahead goal, which meant Dortmund could now afford to drop deep.
After the first quarter of the game, both the midfielders dropped infield to support Julian Weigl in guarding the backline as Dortmund took the foot off from the gas pedal. Also, the centre backs were reluctant to leave their positions after an intense phase, where Ginter and Bartra in particular, left their initial positions respectively to press out either of Muller or Ribery while Sokratis took care of Lewandowski.
Tuchel changed the formation after the break with Mario Gotze and Andre moving to much wider positions, in order to prevent Bayern’s wide influence while Adrian Ramos this time, dropping deep frequently to pick of the ball. Carlo Ancelotti too used his trump card, bringing on Douglas Costa, for Joshua Kimmich. Evidently, the Brazilian caused a unique threat to Dortmund’s defence as Bayern switched the formation to a 4-4-2 with Muller finally getting a chance to play in the middle.
As the Borussia Dortmund left-back Marcel Schmelzer opted to stay close to Muller, it enabled a lot of space from the left-hand side for Costa to exploit upon. However, Tuchel made a smart change immediately, calling on Erik Durm for Andre Schurrle. The fullback was supposed to restrict the spaces left on the left side.
Now Carlo Ancelotti could only hope that his talented side could find a way to breach the Dortmund defend, which they never really did as Tuchel’s mastery proved effectual against an out of sorts Bayern squad. His strategy paid out and the Black and Yellows finally managed to win against their opponents from South and deservedly so.
