MY TAKE ON ATH MAD VS BAYERN MUNICH .

bayern munich played ath madrid at their home in the first leg of their ucl s/f . before i write about the match i would like to ask something as to whether man city appointing gaurdiola is worth it or not . yes gaurdiola is winner he is a very good trainer who not only trains the team very well but also prepares players at the personal level as well which in turn helps the team because when a single unit is prepared very well the unit can play better . but you do have to consider the after effects of gaurdiola leaving the club and the club feeling its effect . the trouble is that the tiki taka way or the famous gaurdiola way that he is known of is not seen anywhere in this current bayern team . they are playing a premier league team and if this is the way that he is going to continue at city then whether is he worth it . the reason for that is that he will sign players which will cost high and that and unlike bayern and barcelona who have very good academies and had very good local players in their team even before gaurdiola arrived . city doesnt have that and that will leave city with a big transfer hole and whether it will sit fine with uefa we will have to watch out .
ath mad started with their usual 4-4-2 formation while bayern started with 4-3-3 formation . i wont describe the team because you already know that . team under gaurdiola already have very unusual formation . it the way the players move or the team plays . but to be honest bayren had unable to find answers against team who played very swift counter attacking football .they had been found wanting against gladbach and yesterday against ath mad . it is very well know that gaurdiola tries to explore the space that the opposition gives or rather he creates spaces with players movement and their positioning which is then exploited by his team . yesterday he failed to do that most importantly he failed to explore the space that ath mad were giving to him and exploit it . ath mad play very conservatively they sit back they press only when the opposition comes into their half and they defend narrow which allows the opposition the space on the flanks .
now gaurdiola is a thinker and he must had watched the videos of ath mad losing matches and why did they lost or what he needs to do . he had set his team accordingly or should we say that that is the way bayern had been playing for the best part of their season . they have two wide players to explore the width and two midfielders to support them . now if we had looked the way bayern had found success against good teams these years then you would had found that bayern always tried to explore the hole and they always had a players to do that . most of the time lewandowski had played in the hole this year while at time costa and vidal too had been used to do that . yesterday the midfielders who support lewandowski were too wide or say that they were not that set up to exploit that instead they were positioned this way that they were there to support the wide players to stretch ath mad's defense but were not able to fully exploit that space that was offered by ath mad . the reason why i am stressing this is because if you had looked in the matches that bayern had dominated and won very comfortably then this was the space that was very much exploited . the other reason is that if you looked ath mad's defeat to barcelona this season earlier in the year then barcelona too had exploited the same space that i am talking about . bayern had been playing too much english type this season . they had been taking out ball wide and crossing out in the box rather than working the ball or trying to out pass their opponents . they had been fairly direct this term. what i had written earlier is that both vidal and thiago were expected to dominate that part of the pitch and try to go beyond lewandowski . vidal did recieve ball in the hole but first off ath mad's mad did a very good job or closing down his options and eventually denying him any opportunity to play anbody .
in the match for the first 25 min when the players were having energy and could chase the opposition ath mad made a very lively start they chased bayern all over the pitch and it is this approach that led to the goal . i dont think that any bayern players would had thought that saul would keep the ball that long and that he would try something like that . the commentators duly noted that bayern lacked pace in their midfield and that would cost them . alonso hasnt got the legs to cover the length of the pitch and cover the back four . thiago and vidal were alongside alonso but were there to support the wide players costa and coman and even try to get beyond them but on the flanks only and keep stretching the ath mad defense . the best chance that bayern had or even barca had against ath mad was when they switched the flanks very quickly and tried to exploit that space on the opposite flank . ath mad are never ever going to give any space in the middle . they stay very compact and they give very little space in the middle of the pitch . most importantly the one on one battle that they won all over the pitch were another factor that led to bayern's defeat . most importantly simeone's team are not given the due accolades that they are also a very good attacking unit just a very good defensive one . when they have the ball they use it very nicely and are more threatning than others . most importantly just like pep's team ath mad's players excel in one on one situation and that is very handy on offense .

last but not the least but ath mad had been able to keep their opponents at bay becuase one unsung hero had gone unnoticed for ath mad and that is agusto hernandez . his influence on both defense and offense had been amazing . his game reading had been amazing and most importantly him positioning in front of the defense meant that gabi could go higher up the pitch . i applaud ath mad transfer policy and they had been very swift in signing players and signing very good one . ferraria carrasco being another one.