Exclusive: in the first of his series of Guardian columns, Arsenal’s head coach runs the rule over two clubs he has met in the last two seasons
The narrative of the last three Champions League finals has been similar, with one team really coming out, dominating and profiting from their goalscoring opportunities early on. It is the chance to get momentum and give the opponents a game they maybe hadn’t prepared for. In last year’s final, Barcelona were on the receiving end of a fast start from Lyon. In Saturday’s final, between Barcelona and Wolfsburg, we will likely see both teams attempt to start aggressively.
In terms of focal points, there are tons of tactical details you could pick out. A potentially gamechanging one is how Barcelona’s right-back, maybe Lucy Bronze if she’s fit, manages the Iceland forward Sveindís Jónsdóttir. Barcelona do not have as much explosiveness and speed up front as Wolfsburg offer through Jónsdóttir and Ewa Pajor, and they are not as direct, but it is so difficult to win the ball off them.
When Barcelona build from the back, they often keep their right-back with the central defenders, who are usually Irene Paredes and Mapi León, to form a back three. They push their left-back really high and wide and that’s why they almost play a forward at left-back, such as Fridolina Rolfö. That allows the actual forward on the left to drop inside and become another 10, basically forming a four-player central midfield, with the 10 and the two 6s.
This season Jónsdóttir has changed sides and played on the left. When Wolfsburg had a German cup semi-final last month at Bayern Munich they were able to exploit that because Bayern also pushed their left-back up but didn’t attack much with their right-back. Jónsdóttir stayed high with Bayern right-back and when Wolfsburg won possession they played a ball into central midfield and from there got it out to Jónsdóttir.
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