Bayern Munich Defending

Turnover Management

FC Bayern Munich Offer Case Study In Controlling The Opponent's Starting Point

IF  you can get behind Alaba, Dante, Boateng & Rafinha,
you still have to beat this guy...

If you play good teams- if you are that lucky - having some control over where you lose the ball is essential to getting results.  For a team through 31 games who have scored 90 and conceded 15, this sort of control is crucial.  They just never hurt themselves, and when the opponent makes an error, FCB have more than enough talent to make it count.  27 wins, 3 draws.  1 Loss.  

For FC Bayern Munich, against Frankfurt, the screen grabs below show a tale of two halves.  In the opening 45 Bayern's takeaways are clearly higher up the field than in the second period.  The second half, after an early goal, Bayern are put under a great deal of pressure compared to the first half, as Frankfurt pushed the FCB defense deeper and consolidated their attacks much closer to the Bayern penalty area.

Against number 3 Bayer Leverkusen, FCB had a more balanced game but the 2-1 win may well have come as a result of the number of takeaways in Leverkusen's half.  Compared to 8-10 takeaways against Frankfurt in the opponent's half (or very close to it), FCB took the ball back from Leverkusen closer to a dozen times in roughly the same area.  Given that bother were one-goal wins, we might conclude that a team needs to lose the ball considerably less than 10 times in their own half, or near midfield, to have a good chance to win or draw.  Not terribly scientific, but the point is well-taken.

In the first half, there are but three takeaways in the Leverkusen half; after changing some things at half time, including scoring a goal shortly before the intermission, FCB better than doubled that total.

By comparison, here are the places FCB lost the ball against the two opponents:

9 TO in their own half against Frankfurt...13 against Leverkusen.  FCB earned 7 free kicks in their half (presumably missed tackles and/or professional fouls to stop a counter attack)...whereas Leverkusen fouled them 10 times; more aggressive defending for sure.  Also note the failed challenges that didn't result in a foul given: four for Frankfurt and three for Leverkusen.  We could say, roughly, that Leverkusen were more aggressive, defended higher up the field and probably earned the goal they got.  Frankfurt sat deeper, didn't press as much in FCB's half, and deserved the egg on their half of the scoresheet.

Most importantly, 13 of 28 and 8 of 50 turnovers came in their own half against Leverkusen and Frankfurt respectively.  7 times FCB won the ball back in the opponent's half of 42 times they lost it there against Frankfurt.  6 of 15 against Leverkusen.  FCB win games for a lot of reasons, but two main ones are that they don't easily concede possession in their own half, and they are effective at flipping that around on their opponents.  

We see here slim margins of difference, but there they are.  Add to this greater ability to lose the ball in ways that hurt less, FCB also have a team defensive concept that makes it that much harder to break down when the opponent does have the ball in a good spot.  Manuel Neuer, the German and FCB #1, is also one of the toughest GKs to beat as well...