Thanks to @Buckets_Aplenty for sharing your take and @spacetown I hope that I wasn’t too rude by tagging you (and here I go again).
I thought it was interesting to think about these two formations and how they would interact because thinking about space is the heart of football tactics, and while the title of this thread is doubtless hyperbole designed to angry up the blood, this is something FM has in common with the SRPG genre. In both, you have a strictly designed space and at least two opposed sides, each different in formation and abilities, with the goal being using your knowledge of other side to control zones of influence and leverage that to achieve your goal.
Bielefeld’s goal, in this case, was not to lose. The league season is long and the goal for a promoted team is always to stay up, so any points will do, even if it is only the single one awarded for a tie. Yes, a win would be quite welcome; playing a top team as a minnow means that the main concern is getting anything out of the game if possible.
Looking at the matchup of the lineups as set out, there is a single area that causes the alarm bells to go off:
Dortmund having a natural overload in the middle of the pitch would mean that they would constantly have a free man ready to receive a pass, allowing them to both dominate possession and use their intelligence and movement to move the Bielefeld players out of position in order to generate chances to score. Although they have two extra men along the backline, asking them to come out to pick up the extra runner from midfield is to court disaster as now the Bielefeld wingbacks would be put on an island against Dortmund’s wingers with a gaping hole behind them instead of a CB to pick up the pieces. Which is why, when the match actually kicked off, Bielefeld were lined up as follows:
The two wingers tuck in, the left-sided one staying high to partner as a second striker, and the other moving back diagonally to become a second central midfielder, allowing one of the CMs to drop to the strata between midfield and defense. This creates a matchup generally like so:
There are three crucial differences here, two that strengthen Bielefeld, and one that weakens them.
- They can now mark man-to-man in the middle of the field.
- By pushing an additional player up top, they’ve created a situation where if Dortmund turns the ball over deep into Bielefeld’s territory, a well-hit direct pass out of the back would find an equal matchup between strikers and defenders, leaving little room for error.
- Now the wingbacks have to also account for the fullbacks as well as helping shield the central defenders from the wide attackers. This isn’t the worst thing in the world, as the assignments for switching marking is more clear, as the extra man would be coming onto a flank with both the wingback and the wide CB.
However, point no. 2 is unfortunately not as positive as it could be, because neither player playing up top for Bielefeld has much pace, which means that one of the major weak points of this Dortmund team, as center-back Mats Hummels’ age and history of injuries means that he’s quite slow.
And indeed, I can’t remember a single dangerous Bielefeld attack over the course of the entire match, with Hummels even spending a fair amount of time carrying the ball over the halfway line, free of any concerns of being left for dead if the ball were to be turned over. However, Bielefeld did very well to stay deep and compact, keeping Dortmund at arm’s length for most of the game, aided somewhat by the visitor’s tendency to play at a fairly deliberate pace, something that Lucien Favre is known for, to some amount of frustration, especially after the breakneck pace under Klopp and to a lesser extent, Tuchel. They also didn’t generate much from open play. They did win a number of free kicks around the box though, and they got two goals from those, with Hummels rising high to head home both.
