Borussia M’Gladbach played with 4-4-1-1 line up.
Real Madrid played with 4-3-3 line up.
M’Gladbach usually let the opponent have the ball. They waited in the midfield’s front and didn’t let the opponent make game.
They pressed with 4-2-2-2 line up. They covered centre midfield with 6 players.
Stindl covered Casemiro, Plea took position close to the opponent’s stoppers. Plea and Stindl sometimes changed their roles with each other. Hofmann and Thuram took position in the half-spaces. Kramer and Neuhaus closed to the forward line and didn’t let any opponent take the ball in between the forward and midfield line.
Hofmann’s and Thuram’s roles were very important. They took position in half-space so they could cover centre and wing at the same time. But Marco Rose didn’t use them exactly like that. They took positions closer to the centre. So all the times they could cover centre midfield with 6 players. So Real Madrid couldn’t have any numerical advantage in the centre midfield. M’Gladbach forced them to make game from the wings.
Hofmann was especially close to the centre. Kroos is Real Madrid’s regista. Hofmann took position close to him and didn’t let him make game easily. Thuram covered wing more than Hofmann. Because Lucas Vazquez is a more attacking player than Mendy and Real Madrid’s right centre midfield was Valverde. He is not a dangerous player about making game like Kroos. So he didn’t close the centre like Hofmann.
Real Madrid tried to make game from the left wing. When Hofmann closed to Kroos, Mendy and Vinicius Jr. had numerical advantage against Lainer with 1 vs 2.
But they couldn’t use this numerical advantage because Mendy couldn’t support attacks effectively and Ginter helped Lainer to cover the wing. So they could cover the right wing with 2 vs 2.
Benzema closed to the left wing but this time Kramer closed to the wing and M’Gladbach could cover the right wing with 3 vs 3.
So M’Gladbach could control spaces and didn’t let the opponent create goal chances.
But of course they couldn’t only cover spaces. They could use the ball efficiently.
They didn’t try to score goal in the set attacks. In the set attack, they usually tried to pass the ball to each other and pull the opponent’s players. They tried to score goal with transition attacks.
There was only one player in the Real Madrid’s defense line who could make mistakes about defense. And this player was Lucas Vazquez. They forced him to make mistakes.
When they were in transition attack, Hofmann ran from the right half-space or centre and Thuram ran from Vazquez’s behind. And when they ran, they remained 3 vs 3 in the forward line.
If Thuram couldn’t find enough space in the left wing, this time Hofmann or Plea ran from the left half-space and tried to have numerical advantage against Vazquez with 2 vs 1.
In this position, Vazquez can mark Thuram well and Hofmann is running from the left half-space. This time Vazquez remains 2 vs 1 against them and can’t cover both of them.
They scored both goals using Vazquez’s defensive weakness.
In the first goal, Real Madrid could react quickly against M’Gladbach’s transition attack but Thuram ran from Vazques’s behind and Vazquez’s couldn’t see him. Then Thuram scored the goal.
In the second goal, Lainer is crossing from the right wing. Plea is taking position in Vazquez’s behind.
When Plea takes the ball, Vazquez doesn’t cover him and Plea can find enough space for shoot because between him and Vazquez’s are too much. Then M’Gladbach could score with Thuram’s foot.
They controlled all the game but Real Madrid could score 2 goals in the last minutes. Borussia M’Gladbach played awesome but they needed some luck.