What tactically went wrong for Chelsea in the UWCL Final

Sport1 here in Germany didn’t help me analyse this as it started 40 seconds too late and I had already missed Barcelona’s first goal, but with Chelsea three goals down in the first 20 minutes, I could see it wasn’t a great structure in defence.

Chelsea looked like their plan was to be in possession; judged on their positioning, the spaces they occupied and the distance between each other but the structural approach caused difficulties.

One of the problems was that the Blues tried to pin back Barcelona’s defensive line from inside the half-spaces with the wingers staying more centrally rather than wide, which created a 4-diamond-2-like shape. At the same time, the pivot player and the 8s stayed really close to the centre backs, Millie Bright and Magdalena Eriksson, while the fullbacks had to occupy the wing-zones but also stayed really low; this created a flat 4 in the build up.

This made it simple for Barcelona to defend in a 4–4–2, to follow their opponents and isolate them in every zone on the pitch. E.g. As soon as Emma Hayes’ side used the fullbacks in their build up, it triggered Barca’s iso-play with the ball-sided winger putting pressure on the receiving full-back while blocking the passing lane into the centre, the weak-sided player from Barcelona’s first line of pressure was cutting the…