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Borussia Dortmund’s head coach Juergen Klopp (L) greets Real Madrid’s Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho (R) before the UEFA Champions League football match Real Madrid FC vs Borussia Dortmund at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid on November 6, 2012. (Getty Images)
While the Champions League has manifested the dominance of the German and Spanish teams this year, the draws for the semis could not have been better panned out. If the contest between the Bavarians and the Catalans was completely based on supremacy of ball-playing and possession, even though finally it turned out to be a no-contest; the game between Real Madrid and Dortmund in Germany seems to be the battle between two of Europe’s most skilful counterattacking teams.
Led by managers who will definitely go down in history as tacticians of the highest order, both Madrid and Dortmund have based their entire season on the Champions League campaign. With Jurgen Klopp having outwitted Jose during the group stage, Mourinho will look to avoid the obvious fallacies in his team during that 2-1 defeat.
Team News and Tactics
One does not need to speculate much about the team news for this tie, even though both managers have been playing full strength squads recently which have resulted in few injuries. For Madrid, Karim Benzema, Luka Modric and Marcelo were all ruled out with injuries in the league clash with Real Betis. In order to avoid the media flaring up the Iker Casillas situation, Mou went out and announced his starting XI as Diego Lopez, Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Raphael Varane, Fabio Coentrao, Xabi Alonso, Sami Khedira, Mesut Ozil, Cristiano Ronaldo, Angel Di Maria and Gonzalo Higuain.
Injuries have not been a distraction for Klopp as he gets a fully fit squad to choose from. The only distraction would be the impending transfer of Mario Gotze to rivals Bayern. The attacking trio of Gotze, Marco Reus and Jakub B?aszczykowski will take their place behind Robert Lewandowski. Sven Bender and Sebastian Kehl will go into the deeper roles in front of a defence having Mats Hummels, Neven Subotic, Lukasz Piszczsek and Marcel Schmelzer.
Both teams go into the game in a 4-2-3-1 with their strength lying in the brilliant attacking 4 up front. Madrid find themselves in a similar situation as in the group stage encounter at Dortmund. Both their first choice fullbacks Marcelo and Arbeloa are ruled out, which makes Coentrao and Ramos to cover. Though both of them are ideal cover at their positions, Dortmund’s style of pressing through a particular wing is going to make their job doubly difficult.
Mats Hummels (L) of Borussia Dortmund fouls Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid during the UEFA Champions League group D match between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on November 6, 2012 in Madrid, Spain. (Getty Images)
Dortmund overload attacks from the right, Di Maria replaces Ronaldo
Reus tends to play on the right side of midfield with Gotze always drifting on to this wing from the middle. And to make matters worse Piszczsek has become a constant source of attack from right back. So Dortmund will no doubt attack through the right, just as they had done so to terrorize Essien last time around.
Another contributing factor on this flank would be the presence of Cristiano Ronaldo on this wing; which would mean that Coentrao is not going to receive any support from CR7 tracking back. Mourinho will be tempted to shift Di Maria on to the left flank to cover Piszczsek’s runs from the back.
Midfield battle: Dortmund have better tacklers, but deep Ozil will make the difference
In either case Madrid will have 2 wingers high up the pitch; and with Klopp allowing both his fullbacks to attack without fear down the wings, it would mean that the midfield duo of Bender and Kehl would be instructed to sit deep. Bender, the better ball player and the more disciplined of the duo would be given the added responsibility of marking Ronaldo’s inward drift.
Matters will be much worse for Madrid’s midfield, as Dortmund tend to attack by pressing the midfield rather than defence. With Lewandowski hanging on to Alonso off the ball, the duo of Gotze and Reus would run directly at the heart of defence. This would make Alonso to sit much deeper alongside Pepe and Varane, hereby buying out space for himself and also allowing Khedira to venture further ahead. With Khedira the only midfielder to take care of, Bender and Kehl would not mind sitting deep to check Ronaldo and Co.
Last time around it was Modric in place of Khedira, and Croatian definitely utilized this space afforded to him. His pick-outs to Di Maria influenced the game initially and also his higher position allowed Ozil to fall much deeper and affect the game. But here Khedira will be a more box-to-box player preferring to run directly at Kehl; so Bender and Kehl’s deep sitting role will again work to Dortmund’s advantage.
Ozil stands out as the key player in this fixture, as the German on paper does not have a marker in midfield. His tactic of pulling out Hummels from the defence often gives runners like Ronaldo a goal scoring chance.
This match is crucially hinged on which of the 2 attacking trios can wreck more havoc. The tie seems to be shifting in Dortmund’s favour due to the fact that Bender is a much better tackler and marker than Xabi Alonso. Dortmund’s defence, in particular their fullbacks have a fearless trait as they look to rush past Ronaldo on every possible chance.
The ‘only one’ will look towards wrapping up a Wembley spot quickly. With the possibility of Dortmund scoring in both the legs extremely high, it all comes down to the question that how many more away goals Madrid can get.
