Before starting to read this article, you can check my other article about Bayern Munich’s high pressing to understand this article better. I explained Bayern Munich’s high pressing in that article.
First of all, I thought theoretically. I assumed I have a mid-level team and thought how I can break Bayern Munich’s high pressing.
I chose 3-4-3 line up. Of course it can change for your team’s different strengths and weaknesses. But as I said, I thought theoretically.
Firstly I want to explain why I chose 3-4-3 line up. I told in my article about Bayern Munich’s high pressing that their biggest weakness is when one of wingers close to covers the opponent’s stopper, this time the opponent’s full back is free and to cover him, one of 2 centre midfielders or full back has to cover the opponent’s full back. And this is a problem for Bayern Munich’s high pressing because usually 1 of 2 centre midfielders has to cover the opponent’s full back but there are 2 center midfielders and if they have to cover wings, they have to cover distance too much. And full backs usually don’t cover the opponent’s full backs because they cover the opponent’s winger and if they want to cover the opponent’s full back, this time the opponent’s winger is free and he can be dangerous for Bayern Munich. But to use that, firstly we should rescue our right wing backs from Bayern Munich’s wingers. So I thought about how I can do it and benefit from it.
Let’s think. We chose 3-4-3 line up. And Bayern Munich uses 4-2-2-2 line up for high pressing. To press our 3 stoppers they need 1 more player. And this player is one of their wingers because centre midfielders are too far away from them. So when their 1 winger comes to cover our 1 stopper, this time in the wing, which one now there isn’t Bayern Munich’s winger is here, we have a numerical advantage with 2 vs 1. We have 1 wing back and 1 winger, they have 1 full back. So we should focus on to use this numerical advantage.
Firstly we should have a look at Bayern Munich’s full back. He has 3 options: cover the wing back, cover the winger or if he can, take position between these 2 players and cover both of them. We should organize our plans accordingly to Bayern Munich’s full back’s moves.
Bayern Munich’s full back has to take position in forward as he can. Because they try to take the ball quickly and attack. They don’t try only to cover spaces and defend well. Because of that he doesn’t cover our winger and he has to take position in forward. So he usually has to cover our wing back.
But he is not stupid. He knows if he focuses on to our wing back too much, this time our winger can be completely free. So his 1st role is covering our wing back but also he has to be careful about our winger too. So naturally he wants to cover our wing back and winger at the same time. He always has to try to do the 3rd option.
So our winger should increase his distance between him and the wing back as he can because when he increases the distance, Bayern Munich’s full back can’t cover both. For that, our winger should take position in touchline’s beside or use half-space.
If he uses touchline’s beside, between him and Bayern Munich’s full back distance increases. And with that positioning he can be comfortable in next step. When he takes the ball, Bayern Munich’s 1 stopper wants to close to him and cover him. But between Bayern Munich’s stopper and winger’s distance is too much for Bayern Munich’s stopper when our winger is in touchline’s beside and he can’t cover him quickly. But if our winger takes position in touchline’s beside, this time also between him and our stoppers’ distance increases too and if our stoppers are not good about long passes, they can’t pass to our winger.
If our winger uses half-space, because of Bayern Munich’s stopper’s and full back’s distance is so much, he can take the ball easily. But to take the ball, of course he should close to midfield a little bit and it means between him and Bayern Munich’s full back’s distance decreases more than his in touchline’s beside positioning. But with that positioning, when he takes the ball, our wing back can support the attack from the wing more comfortably. In touchline’s beside positioning, when the winger takes the ball, our wing back can’t support the attack from the wing because our winger is here. But now with half-space positioning, all the space in the wing belongs to our wing back so he can support from the wing more comfortably. And with that positioning, Bayern Munich’s stopper can’t close to our winger because if he close, our centre forward can escape the defense line’s behind more comfortably and if we think that also our wing back goes from the wing, our wing back and centre forward remains 2 vs 1 against Bayern Munich’s stopper who is still in the defense line. Bayern Munich’s centre midfielders can’t cover our winger because they cover our centre midfielders and if they want to cover our winger, this time in centre we have numerical advantage with 2 vs 1 and we can make game from centre easily and it is better for us. In half-space positioning, also our stoppers can pass to our winger more easily because the distance between our stoppers and winger is not too much like our winger’s positioning beside touchline.
Ok, so our winger should take position in the half-space. But for a successful attack, not the only important positioning is his. We should get support from all the players, especially the players who are more close to our winger. I mean for an example, if we try to use our right winger, this time our right stopper, right wing back, right centre midfielder and centre forward has important roles.
Right stopper’s role is important because if we try to use our right winger, probably the right stopper will pass the ball to him. So he should be ready to pass opportunities.
Right wing back should take position as close as he can to touchline. Because with that positioning, between him and our winger’s distance increases more and Bayern Munich’s left back’s possibility of control of both players decreases. He should pull Bayern Munich’s left back and he should convince Bayern Munich’s left back that he wants to take the ball. If he can do it, Bayern Munich’s left back focuses on to him too much and our right winger can take the ball more easily and comfortably. And also when our right winger takes the ball, on the contrary this time Bayern Munich’s left back tries to cover our right winger quickly and he forgets our right wing back. And because before our right wing back pulled Bayern Munich’s left back, when our right winger takes the ball, our right winger has a lot of time to think what he should do now or to do something. And the right wing back can support the attack from the right wing comfortably because he is completely free and if he takes the ball later, Bayern Munich’s left back can’t catch him.
Normally our right centre midfielder hasn’t any connection with the ball in this attack. But his role is to pull Bayern Munich’s left centre midfielder and this is a very important role. Because if he can’t pull, Bayern Munich’s left centre midfielder can take position smartly to break the pass connection between our right winger and our right stopper. And this time our right winger can’t take the ball. And also let’s say our right stopper can’t pass to our right winger. This time our right centre midfielder should close to the right stopper quickly to take the ball and pass to our right winger directly.
Centre forward’s role is the most simple and important role. He should pull Bayern Munich’s stoppers to himself. If he can do it, our right winger can take the ball comfortably. If he can’t do it, Bayern Munich’s left stopper can cover our right wing. To pull both of Bayern Munich’s stoppers, he should take position between them and not let the match with only 1 of them. He should be a threat for both. He should make Bayern Munich’s stoppers busy with him. If he takes position between both stoppers but Bayern Munich’s left stopper close to our right winger, it’s better for us because this time our centre forward can escape the opponent’s behind easily and when he takes the ball, he can go to score goal directly. Because he took position between 2 stoppers and it means no stopper marked him with 1 vs 1. And now when 1 stopper closes to cover our right winger, this time he can be free because Bayern Munich’s other stopper is not close to him.