In modern football, players’ tempoes and physical levels are very important. You may be a good squad but if your players’ physical levels are not good, you can lose to a worse team than you.
Olympique Lyonnais showed us this. They haven’t talent squad like Juventus or Manchester City. But they have a good squad who has great physique. And of course they have great players to take the score. Or how they could came into the UEFA Champions League semi finals.
I analyzed Juventus team in one of my previous articles. If you read that article before this article, you can understand this article better. For a summary, they haven’t enough high tempo players in the midfield. Against Lyon, they played with 4-3-3 in both matches. And Lyon played with 3-5-2.
3-5-2 line up’s disadvantage is wings. There is only 1 player in the wings and if opponent can come to wings with 2 or 3 players, they can make game. But if the play with 3-5-2 line up team has high tempo midfielders, they can shift to wings for cover quickly.
Lyon’s midfielders have high tempo and they can cover wings and midfield quickly. Also, 2 centre forwards don’t press to opponent’s stoppers. They cover opponent’s midfielders. So, they can cover midfield with 5 players.
In both matches Juventus couldn’t make game and they tried to score goal with crossing. Because when 1 player took the ball, 3 centre midfielders and 2 centre forwards came to cover spaces and he couldn’t find space. Also, Pjanic couldn’t take the ball easily because of Lyon’s midfield defending. So, they could only cross.
Sarri used Pjanic, Rabiot and Bentancur in his centre midfield in both matches. These players haven’t high tempo. So, against Lyon’s centre midfielders, they couldn’t find space to take the ball and when they found, they couldn’t use because Lyon’s midfielders came for cover quickly.
Sarri wanted Rabiot and Bentancur to use half-spaces. But they couldn’t use because opponent’s midfielders covered half-spaces until they used. They remained too slow. To use half-space, player should move quickly and have strong physique.
Manchester City match was a bit different, so I want to explain half by half. First half Manchester City played with 3-4-3 line up.
In the set attack, Sterling was approaching Jesus. De Bruyne used right half-space and moved free. İlkay went to the left half-space.
They had 2 centre midfielder and they couldn’t make game because if you play with 2 centre midfielder, both of us should play with high tempo for support attack and defense in the same time. Neither of these midfielders had great physique or high tempo. So, this system didn’t work. İlkay and Rodri played in the centre midfielder position and neither of them have strong physique or high tempo.
Also look at the wing backs. Cancelo played in the left wing back position and because of his dominant foot is right, he couldn’t support attacks with the left wing greatly.
Walker could support attacks in the right wing. He has strong physique. But his rival was Cornet and he has a strong physique, too. He was careful about covering Walker. So Walker couldn’t pass him and support attack.
So they couldn’t fight against Lyon’s players. And they had a numerical disadvantage. In the centre midfield, they became 2 vs 3.
And, like against Juventus, Lyon’s 2 centre forwards closed to midfield. So, İlkay and Rodri remained between 5 players. As a result, Manchester City couldn’t make game by using the centre.
When İlkay came to the left half-space, Sterling closed to the left wing, Cancelo closed to the left wing.
In the Lyon team, Dubois covered Cancelo, Denayer covered Sterling, Caqueret covered İlkay. So, Lyon team could cover the right wing with 3 vs 3. And because of their physical superiority, they could cover more easily.
Also Jesus and Sterling became too lonely. Jesus couldn’t fight against 3 stoppers.
In the right wing, when De Bruyne came to the right wing, Walker closed to the right wing.
In the Lyon team, Cornet covered Walker, Aouar covered De Bruyne, Marçal waited in the Cornet’s behind. So, Lyon could cover left wing with 2 vs 3. They had a numerical advantage.
Jesus was close to the wings and pulled one stopper to create space to his teammates and passed to his teammates. But I am saying again, Lyon team has great physique and stoppers used their physical advantage against Jesus and Jesus couldn’t find enough space to take the ball or to create space for his teammates.
To sum up, Manchester City couldn’t increase tempo in the first half and Lyon crushed them with physical advantage. But in the second half, with the first change, the game started over.
Guardiola changed Fernandinho with Mahrez. And formation changed with 4-2-3-1. They had an extra dribbling talent footballer.
Sterling and Mahrez closed to Jesus and De Bruyne could use left wing and half-space. Now in the forward line they became 4 vs 3 against stoppers. Still they couldn’t use centre but they could be more effective in the wings.
And finally they had a numerical advantage in the forward line but they couldn’t use it well because of Lyon’s physical superiority.
Now Cancelo can be free in the left wing because Sterling pulled Denayer and Dubois, De Bruyne pulled Caqueret. Now Cancelo is under pressure.
Dubois should be close to Sterling because now opponent has 3 forward players and if he let Sterling with Denayer, Denayer couldn’t cover Sterling easily like in the first half. Because in the first half one stopper was free for helping to cover. If Sterling could pass Denayer, Marcelo could cover Sterling.
But now there is no free stopper. So, if Denayer couldn’t cover Sterling against 1 vs 1 position, Sterling could be more dangerous. So to prevent this case, Dubois positioned closer to Sterling.
But Cancelo couldn’t be effective. Sometimes Ekambi saw Cancelo and closed to the left wing to cover him, sometimes Cancelo couldn’t run to the left wing in the right time and sometimes they couldn’t use Cancelo greatly. As a result, they couldn’t use Cancelo greatly.
I have to give due, Guardiola’s player substitution worked and players movements were better than the first half. But Lyon’s players covered City’s players very well. De Bruyne, Sterling, Mahrez and Jesus could be more effective but other players couldn’t find space and couldn’t play well. And with some luck, great game plan and physical superiority, Olympique Lyonnais won against Manchester City.
As a result, Juventus and Manchester City have a great squad and a lot of world class players. But in the modern football, sometimes if you haven’t great physique and high tempo players and opponents have them, you can’t win. You should add physics to talent. Olympique Lyonnais have a great squad. Their talent levels are not as good as Juventus or Manchester City but they add physics to talent.