Sevilla 2-3 Borussia Dortmund: An analysis of BVB’s memorable Champions League win
The intense pressing and counter-attacks
Jude Bellingham and Mahmoud Dahoud were now tasked with pressing the outside CB to allow Reus and Sancho to stay close to the inside forward and close them off as an option. This however opened the opportunities for Sevilla to play centrally and within two vertical passes, they could have had Gomez running at the Dortmund defence. Below you can see the large distance between Can and Reus which makes it easy for the Sevilla midfielder to progress the ball up the pitch and take 4 Dortmund players out of the game.
This is something which Sevilla tried doing to open the gaps in the Dortmund midfield. The home side would play the ball wide and then play a horizontal pass to the midfielder who would instantly play a vertical pass while the Dortmund team was shuffling to try and catch them out.
For Borussia Dortmund’s second goal Haaland receives the ball deep before starting the counterattack. He waits for the CB to step up before playing a one-two with Jadon Sancho and exploiting the space in behind left by the CB. Having Bellingham and Dahoud also allowed Sancho to play his natural game, as he had the freedom to drift into different areas and make things happen on the counter.
As Jules Kounde now has to shuffle over to block the run of Haaland, this opens a gap for Sancho to play the ball into with Haaland making a diagonal run behind Kounde before putting the ball into the net.
Sevilla pushed Fernando further up the pitch with Suso drifting into the right half space. This pushed Jude Bellingham and Emre Can deeper which opened up more space for Joan Jordan to turn and advance the ball up the pitch. Raphael Guerreiro is not able come central to pick up Suso as he has to cover the space to stop the Sevilla right back making the run in behind.
One of the disadvantages of playing a narrow 4-5-1 is that it can cause confusion between the winger and the full back in regard to who presses the deeper wide player. Below we see Morey has gone out to press Gomez which has left the Sevilla player in the half space free and able to receive the ball in behind. You can see Marco Reus pointing at the Sevilla player as he knows the player is now free and could potentially hurt Dortmund if he receives a ball in behind.
The danger of this is that the Sevilla player could either be through on goal, or put the ball in the box where Sevilla would have a 2v1 overload as Akanji would be dragged out wide to close down the man. Ivan Rakitic and Youssef En-Nesyri would be up against Hummels alone.
Reus’ defensive duties and pressing played a big role in the win though, as he stifled Papu Gomez for the majority of the game and ensured that Mateu Morey’s defensive task became that much easier.
Below we can see another example of Dortmund trying to exploit the space opened from a Sevilla CB stepping up to press, Dortmund did this constantly when there was a turnover high up the pitch. Sevilla left massive gaps between their back four and the midfield, and Dortmund’s willing runners took full advantage of it in the first half.
Having Dahoud and Bellingham in the team stretched the Sevilla defence and gave Haaland, Sancho and Reus a bit more freedom up front. And with Can there to perform the defensive duties, Dahoud and Bellingham could join the attacks more often.
Gomez was coming very deep and central to try and get on the ball and this made it difficult for Sevilla to circulate the ball as the shape was very narrow and disjointed. Reus was able to pounce and win the ball from Gomez on the halfway line which led to Dortmund’s third goal as they countered and Haaland put the ball in the net.
