There are, hear me out here, ways to beat Bayern Munich.
No, I don’t mean giving them all food poisoning. No, I don’t mean nicking their boots ahead of kick off. Genuinely, this seemingly impossible task is actually possible.
You’ll need everything to go your way and 10/10 performances across the board, but if Lyon showed us anything on Wednesday night, it’s that Die Roten can be got at.
What we saw in the previous round against Barcelona was a painfully inept game plan from the Spanish side that screamed ‘beat me’. What we saw from Lyon was quite the opposite, as despite the defeat, the French giants etched out the blueprint for how to beat Bayern – and here it is:
Hans-Dieter Flick’s side like to, in no lesser terms, dominate football matches. That doesn’t mean bully the opposition off of the ball. Plain and simply, they want possession. All of it.
So, taking a leaf out of Barça’s book, don’t play a flat four in midfield. You’re stood in no man’s land. It’s pointless. Flood your attack and wide areas with pace. Seems simple, because it is.
When you do come up against the Bavarians, the transitions when you turn the ball over are key. You have actually get it first, of course, but given that they play such an astronomically high line, exploiting those gaps either side of the centre-backs is where you can do the most damage. Effectively, Die Roten want to shrink the pitch into a single half.
Doing that is fine if the players you’re facing can’t finish. Y’know, like Lyon.
That is a dangerous ploy, however.
As we saw in the opening proceedings on Wednesday, Lyon were tearing Bayern to shreds. With fire in their bellies they utilised a medium press that caught their opponents off guard in midfield, with the forward pair anxiously waiting for the turnovers to switch on the afterburners.
Even if it meant Memphis Depay dropping into the central hole to double up on Leon Goretzka and Thiago, they exposed the areas of weakness in Flick’s side and set about exploiting them.
Alphonso Davies, for all his brilliance, practically plays as a left-winger. Bayern have such confidence in their own abilities that this doesn’t trouble them. As it shouldn’t – they boast outstanding ball retention across their starting lineup. But you can’t keep the ball forever. You just can’t. Not in a Champions League final, at least.
In the case of Lyon, Depay stared down on David Alaba in central defence, knowing he drifts far apart from his opposite centre-back. As soon as the initial press is broken, that space is there to be run into. Alaba is no slouch, but Jerome Boateng has lost a few yards of pace. After him Niklas Sule is hardly Speedy Gonzales neither.
They got away with it on this occasion…well, many occasions on Wednesday…but you can only hope for Die Roten that they’ve learnt their lesson after tonight. Kylian Mbappe, human speed jet, won’t take any prisoners. Nor will Neymar, for that matter. He can’t spurn opportunities three games in a row. Surely not.
Bayern will be ripped to pieces by Paris Saint-Germain if they persist on playing their defence so far forward. Making a (very) rough estimate, the backline needs to drop back at least five yards. Offering those gaps for two of the best players on the planet to waltz into is footballing suicide. They will concede goals, and plenty of them.
What we can hope for, with a certain degree of confidence, is that Sunday’s showpiece will be BRILLIANT.
Yes, there are no fans and that sucks, but when was the last time a Champions League final got the pulses racing quite like this one? Mbappe, Neymar, Di Maria, Lewandowski, Gnabry, Thiago, Muller.
Sunday can’t come sooner.