Daryl's Notebook: What I learned from matchweek 1 of the Champions League (Part 2)
A continuation of me watching too many Champions League matches from matchweek 1 as I focus on the matches that took place on Thursday evening/Friday morning.
It is part two of my Notebook series where I share my thoughts and observations about some Champions League matches from matchweek 1! After watching and reviewing two matches from Tuesday (Wednesday morning for us in Asia) and two more matches from Wednesday (Thursday morning), this part will mainly focus on matches that took place on Thursday (Friday morning) with the addition of the 2023 final replay.
If you have not read the first part of this Notebook, you can find it right below and I would encourage you to have a glance to understand the format that I am going with. Without further ado, let’s get into the next couple of matches!
Man City 0-0 Internazionale
Reason for choosing: While not really a classic Champions League match, Man City vs Internazionale is a replay of the 2023 final and, considering how interesting that final was from a tactical point of view, I expected this match to be at a similar level. Both Man City and Internazionale are/were also current domestic champions, which added another level of excitement to the match.
Quick thoughts:
I was only able to watch the first half due to some disruptions with the full match that I got, but I was able to roughly understand why the match ended with a goalless draw.
Man City surprised me a bit with their plan to deal with Internazionale’s 5-3-2 defensive block as Pep changed the team’s in possession shape from a usual 3-2-4-1 to a 3-4-3 with a diamond midfield. Rodri Hernández and Bernardo Silva were the top and bottom ends of that diamond respectively, with Kevin de Bruyne and Rico Lewis playing on the sides and attacking the half spaces constantly. Through this, City tried to play through Internazionale’s defensive block on some occasions and attempted to disrupt the block to create space for box entries.
But Internazionale dealt with City’s attacking threat well as the away side managed to lure City out wide most of the time, outnumber them, and force backward or sideway passes. Similar to how Girona’s defensive block from part 1, Internazionale had the numerical advantage in the centre to deal with crosses coming in and even created 2v1 situations against Jack Grealish and Sávinho. They also isolated Erling Haaland in the middle; even though the Norwegian striker was able to get on to the end of some chances, he was largely quiet for most of the first half.
The Italian side was also decent on counter attacks but they just seemed to lack the final touch. If they had been a bit more clinical with their counters, or either Marcus Thuram and Mehdi Taremi had done some things a bit different, Inter could have come away with three points.
Also, a special mention to Internazionale’s build-up situations as well, since they also used plenty of rotations to progress the ball (this has become a theme with Italian sides, hasn’t it?). At times, Alessandro Bastoni and Yann Aurel Bisseck found themselves standing in the wing-backs’ positions while Nicolò Barella and Piotr Zieliński moved very close to Yann Sommer to pick up and bring the ball out of defence. Very interesting stuff!
Overall: A 0-0 draw tends to be boring for most people, but sometimes, they can be very interesting from the tactical side of things. Both Man City and Internazionale brought good ideas to the match and some worked, some did not. It is fair to say that the Italian side had a slightly better time than host as they managed to leave the Etihad with a clean sheet, and in the most Italian way as possible.
Feyenoord 0-4 Bayer Leverkusen
Reason for choosing: Bayer Leverkusen started this Champions League campaign after a convincing double-winning season and also managed to go unbeaten up until the Europa League final. With that achievement, I expected Leverkusen to be one of the favourites to go straight to the second knockout round and I wanted to see if Xabi Alonso’s side could live up to that expectation. This match was also another excuse for me to watch a Dutch team after PSV Eindhoven’s loss to Juventus on Tuesday (Wednesday morning).
Quick thoughts:
Leverkusen were good. They easily dominated the first half while also keeping Feyenoord at bay once they decreased their mentality in the second half. The host were not bad, especially when they were able to have more of the ball, but they just could not match Leverkusen’s quality both in and out of possession.
Leverkusen had slightly more possession in the first half and they continued to show their in possession qualities by playing through Feyenoord’s mid block and finding Jeremie Frimpong on the right on multiple occasions. There was a slight reliant on attacking down Frimpong’s right-hand side, but he gave Dávid Hancko a tough time by getting to the byline with his dribbles and found the attackers inside of the box. A couple of Leverkusen’s goals came from similar situations to that, just Frimpong dribbling to the byline from either a settled possession situation or a counter-attack, made a low cross into the box for Florian Wirtz and Álex Grimaldo to score.
Something interesting that I noticed not only from this match, but also from Leverkusen’s clash with RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga. It seems as if the presence of Martin Terrier as one of the two attacking midfielders allowed Victor Boniface to drift more to the left and Terrier would take up the central striker position. I’m still unsure about the purpose of this rotation, but it is there for a reason.
Feyenoord showed some qualities in the second half as they changed from a 4-3-3 to a 5-3-2 after the introduction of left-back Gijs Smal. It was interesting to see that most of Feyenoord’s attacks went through Hwang In-beom, who looked very energetic whenever he had the ball. I knew about the Korean’s ability after watching him at the 2022 World Cup, and it’s good to know that he will play an important role in Feyenoord’s team this season. Anis Hadj-Moussa also caught a bit of my attention when he came on as he caused some troubles down Feyenoord’s right-hand side through his crosses in for Santiago Giménez and Ayase Ueda.
But, generally speaking, the host found it tough to find a breakthrough when Leverkusen started to drop deep inside the second half. You could say that they were a bit unlucky when they had two disallowed goals in both halves and conceded an own goal from their keeper Timo Wellenreuther.
Overall: Unarguably a match where Leverkusen never seemed to lose. They looked good overall and was almost perfect both in and out of possession. But Feyenoord should not see this as a total blown out, but more so an unlucky match where they got outplayed in the first half and got two goals disallowed because of offside. Brian Priske did say that they are still new and getting to know each other, but I hope that once they get into their groove, Feyenoord will be a good team to watch in the Eredivisie and in the UCL this season.