Champions League final tactical preview: How can Dortmund stop Real Madrid winning a 15th title?
The Champions League anthem combines lyrics from UEFA’s three official languages.
English, German and French are sung in the famed composition, almost perfectly encapsulating this year’s final. Wembley Stadium in England is the setting for Germany’s Borussia Dortmund to face… Spain’s Real Madrid. So close.
Of course, Madrid are in the final yet again. This will be their eighth appearance in the Champions League decider since the turn of the century as they look to extend their dominance of the competition with a 15th European title (only one other club, AC Milan of Italy, has even managed seven) — and their sixth in 10 years.
Even the kindest statistical models and betting companies have Madrid as overwhelming favourites to get their hands on the trophy Manchester City lifted last year, but Dortmund have been writing a compelling underdog story in Europe this season where its last chapter be the best one of the lot.
Who will be most threatening in transition? Can Dortmund keep Madrid’s left flank quiet? Is this the most balanced Madrid side in recent memory?
Allow The Athletic to provide a definitive preview of the 2023-24 Champions League final…
Dortmund also played in the previous Champions League final held at Wembley, in 2013 (Martin Rose/Getty Images)
Borussia Dortmund will be looking to exorcise some demons as they return to Wembley for another Champions League final 11 years after their 2-1 defeat to fellow Germans Bayern Munich there in the 2012-13 fixture, when a team managed by Jurgen Klopp was undone by a late Arjen Robben winner.
Dortmund fans will be hoping Edin Terzic’s side present the European version of themselves on Saturday night rather than this season’s comparably disappointing domestic one. It has been a confusing season for the club, reaching the Champions League final but finishing fifth in the Bundesliga, 26 points adrift of title winners Bayer Leverkusen.
Even looking beyond their points tally, Dortmund’s expected goal difference — which measures the quality of chances a side has created and conceded — of 0.3 per 90 minutes was also fifth-best in the German top flight.
Their Jekyll-and-Hyde season was best encapsulated during the week they qualified for the Champions League final, following up a 2-0 aggregate victory over French champions Paris Saint-Germain with a 3-0 loss against relegation candidates Mainz just four days later.
That is not to say that the omens should be against Dortmund, as there have been plenty of sides who have struggled domestically but become a different animal on the European stage — Liverpool (2004-05), Chelsea (2011-12), and Madrid themselves (1997-98 and 1999-2000) being the most salient examples in recent times.
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Dortmund did not just scrape through the competition’s Group of Death containing PSG, Newcastle United and AC Milan — they won it, making their navigation through the knockout phase comparably easier than what was happening on the other side of the draw.
PSV Eindhoven (round of 16), Atletico Madrid (quarter-final) and PSG all provided stern tests across two legs, but there is little doubt that Terzic’s side earned a kinder route to the final after that tricky group stage.
Dortmund’s journey to Wembley has been underpinned by their collective effort. Terzic’s side have spread the goals around when on the European stage, with 12 players contributing to their total of 17 — Niclas Fullkrug leads the way with just three.
After an initial shift to a back three for their first group game against PSG, Dortmund have largely set up in a 4-2-3-1 shape in their 12 European fixtures this season so far. Emre Can will often drop between the centre-backs in build-up, allowing the full-backs to have a higher starting position as the other midfielders — typically Marcel Sabitzer and Julian Brandt — rotate vertically and their wide players stay on the last line of the opposition defence.
Fullkrug has been the one to spearhead the attack, with pace in wide areas being provided by Karim Adeyemi, Donyell Malen and, in the knockout phase, a rejuvenated Jadon Sancho, who rejoined the club in January on loan from Manchester United, two and a half years after leaving for Old Trafford.
A lot of Dortmund’s threat in that semi-final against PSG came through Sancho — particularly in the first leg at home. The 24-year-old’s 18 attempted take-ons that night were the second most by any player in a single game in the Champions League this season, with his 12 completed dribbles being the most from any individual in a Champions League semi-final since Lionel Messi in 2008 (for Barcelona against Manchester United).
Sancho’s “cage football” style comes alive when Dortmund tap into their transitional attacking approach. Even accounting for the number of games played, their direct attacks (as a proxy of counter-attacking play) have been among the highest in this year’s Champions League. Particularly during the knockout stage, it has been Sancho and Adeyemi — often found by the attacking creativity of Brandt — who have led the charge on goal.
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Unfortunately for Terzic’s side, they are up against an equally transitional side in Madrid, whose six goals from fast breaks in Europe — more than any other team — outline just how punishing they can be when a match opens up. If the final descends into a basketball-style game of back-and-forth, you would suspect it will suit the 14-time European champions a little more.
Dortmund are likely to need those pacy wingers to tuck in and drop back to support their full-backs, in the same manner that they did in the second leg against PSG in Paris. It was not uncommon to see Dortmund forming a situational back five at times that night, as Adeyemi…
…and Sancho had the defensive awareness to counteract the threat of the opposition wingers by condensing the space in wide areas.
Out of possession, Dortmund’s success in this year’s competition has been grounded in their defensive solidity and compactness, having conceded just nine goals in their 12 matches and kept six clean sheets — their most in the Champions League since 1997-98, when they were defending their European title and got to the semi-finals before losing to… Real Madrid.
Sure, they might have ridden their luck at times, with PSG hitting the woodwork on six occasions without scoring once across the two semi-final legs. Yes, PSG’s second-leg xG tally of 3.3 was the highest of any team in the Champions League this season without finding the net. But in knockout competitions, a dollop of luck is par for the course, and Dortmund earned theirs with some staunch defending led by one man in particular — Mats Hummels.
No player logged more than Hummels’ 10 clearances, four tackles and three interceptions during the semi-final’s second leg, and his headed goal that night made him the oldest German (aged 35 years and 143 days) to score a goal in a Champions League knockout match.
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Hummels and fellow stalwart Marco Reus, who is leaving the club this summer, are the only remaining players who played for Dortmund in the 2013 final (Hummels had three seasons with Bayern in between but returned in 2019), and they will be hoping to exonerate the ill-feeling of that loss at Wembley more than a decade on.
That defensive compactness led by Hummels will be crucial if they are to find a way to win against Madrid.
Expect to see plenty of examples below of their tight shape, with Terzic empowering his team to be comfortable out of possession and ready to spring a counter-attack when the moment is right.
What might make that difficult is that their illustrious opponents have more than one way of breaking you down.
If you glance through Madrid’s goals in this year’s competition, you would struggle to find too much of a pattern in the way they score. Cutbacks, counter-attacks, long-rangers, headers, moments of individual brilliance, they are all there, and do you know what the best part is? They don’t even need to be playing well to score.
Madrid thrive in moments of suffering, and it feels as though so many of their goals have come against the run of play, having arguably ridden their luck for long periods in each of their knockout tie against RB Leipzig, Manchester City and Bayern.
You know the script by now, but Carlo Ancelotti’s side have a knack for making the unpredictable… well, predictable. Just when the opposition feel like they have Madrid in a chokehold, they find a way to wriggle out. Like any James Bond film, you know what is going to happen, but it does not make watching it unfold any less exciting.
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This makes it rather difficult to offer too many reliable tactical patterns, but Ancelotti’s use of a 4-4-2 diamond in possession has allowed plenty of rotations at the top end of the field. Unsurprisingly, those rotations are skewed towards the left flank.
In the Champions League this season, 42 per cent of Madrid’s attacking touches have been channelled down their left third of the pitch as Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo take it in turns to face up and torment the opposition full-back.
No player has attempted more take-ons than Vinicius Jr’s 184 since the start of last season, so you can understand why his team-mates will look to him to cause havoc — but that left-sided dominance is not just about their No 7.
Of course, there will be occasions where it is best to give Vinicius Jr the space and freedom to attack on his own and isolate opposition defenders before darting past them. In the second of their semi-final with Bayern at the Bernabeu, the 23-year-old’s 14 take-ons were comfortably more than he’s had in any other Champions League game all season, as he had the beating of right-back Joshua Kimmich.
However, Madrid will also overload that left side with their best technical players as they bounce the ball through the lines and bear down on goal.
You will be equally likely to see Toni Kroos pull into the left half-space, with Rodrygo pulling to that touchline as Vinicius Jr rolls inside, while Jude Bellingham will drift over to support with runs that often drag opposition defenders with him.
That trio of Bellingham, Vinicius Jr and Rodrgyo have undoubtedly been Madrid’s strongest attacking players this season. Our eyes can see it, and statistical models seemingly support it.
Twenty First Group is a sports intelligence firm that advises clubs, leagues and investors, and its player model generates ratings for over 145,000 players worldwide across 250 competitions. These ratings are calculated based on factors such as the strength of a player’s team, their position, their playing time, and their contribution towards their team’s attack or defence.
Analysing the distribution of these ratings across this year’s Madrid squad — with a minimum of 180 La Liga minutes played — is rather revealing.
The boxplot graphic below shows this spread of ratings, with the white line reflecting the average player rating in the squad, with most of its members falling within the middle 50 per cent of the group (shown by the gold box).
Interestingly, that quality gap from Dani Ceballos (lowest rating) to Vinicius Jr (highest rating) is notably small when compared with previous Madrid squads across the past decade.
Based on Twenty First Group’s model, Madrid’s 2014-15 iteration had the strongest average player quality, with this year’s squad only good enough to be their sixth-best since 2013-14 — and the fourth-best one to reach a Champions League final. However, this year’s distribution of ratings (based on the standard deviation, for those wondering) is the most well-balanced it has been across this period, shown by the tighter boxplot below.
Losing Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema in recent years will undoubtedly weaken any side, but Ancelotti has overseen a rebuild that is packed with youthful exuberance and high technical quality, even as the likes of Kroos and Luka Modric sail off into the sunset.
“The attitude and commitment (of the players) has allowed us to have a fantastic season,” Ancelotti said this week. “There’s also individual quality, but (Madrid great Alfredo) Di Stefano’s quote (‘No player is as good as everyone combined’) is the best quote.”
For a club synonymous with signing galacticos and superstars to wear a white shirt, having the highest floor has been as important as having the highest ceiling among Madrid’s latest generation — with Ceballos being the best “weakest player” of any Madrid squad in the past 12 seasons, according to Twenty First Group’s player rating model.
Sure, one of Vinicius Jr, Bellingham and Rodrygo is likely to grab the headlines on Saturday, but there is a steeliness to Madrid that runs right through the squad.
It is a key reason why their Bond-esque escapology acts have become so normalised.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
