Champions League Final: Chelsea v Bayern

I hope you weren´t expecting an incredibly detailed analysis of formations and tactics and tendencies, the sort of anorakian nonsense that people who never played the game often bring to the table. It annoys me when people throw around terms like ¨catenaccio¨ or ¨playing a high-line¨ when they don´t really know what they´re talking about, but they´ve read Jonathan Wilson´s books or they´ve seen some website like Zonal Marking that spouts these terms liberally.

To each his or her own self, but I´d rather talk about players over approach anytime. What little I will say about tactics in this sense is that in this match we have squads that bend the tactics to their strengths (and failings mind you) rather than the other way around. Chelsea for one, when under André Vilas-Boas, tried to play that high-line of defense with dead-weight signposts like John Terry at the back, were playing against type.

People have hailed Roberto De Matteo´s job of rescuing a season for the Blues but he just adjusted the approach. Same with Fernando Torres really. Much criticism came on the former Atlético de Madrid striker for signing a huge contract with the London club after ditching his former club Liverpool, but while he played well at Anfield where they played quick-balls into space, he just wasn´t a Didier Drogba type that harrases defenders and holds up play enough for the likes of Frank Lampard to drop into attack.

While the tendency might also be to single the approach that Chelsea will likely use against Bayern Munich as catenaccio or catenaccio-like, they don´t play with a sweeper and they don´t man-mark all that much, but they will play defensively and their tendency is to play on the counter after absorbing Bayern pressure. Some will take the fact that Bayern have lost their preeminence in German football over the last few years because Borussia Dortmund have singled out a very particular weakness that the Bavarians have on the counter and have built, as Guardian columnist Raphael Honigstein has mentioned on Football Weekly, a side ready-made to beat Bayern Munich by absorbing pressure and attacking on the counter. While this gives some hope to Chelsea, they don´t have the quick-strike capability that they used to have.

More telling is the approach that Bayern have. They play an attractive style of possession football, a bit like Barcelona but the Germans have much more width and they can exploit weaknesses that Chelsea have on the wings and in the center of defense more than the blaugrana could. If either Ribery or Robben have any kind of impact especially early on, this will end poorly for the Londoners. If Chelsea can keep it close and sustain their energy late, they can win this 1-0 or 2-1.

I don´t think they can. The suspensions from the previous round effect Chelsea strengths more than Bayern´s. I think this will be a comfortable win for Bayern Munich: 3-1 at home (and that is the one fact more important than other) at the Allianz Arena.