AS Roma vs. Manchester City: Tactical Review of Champions League Game
Manchester City progressed to the UEFA Champions League latter stages with a 2-0 victory over Roma at the Olimpico on Wednesday evening. Samir Nasri's wonder strike set the Citizens on the path to glory, and as the home side threw resources forward, Pablo Zabaleta iced the match with a killer second late on.
Let's take a tactical look at how this match played out.
Formations and Starting XIs
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Roma played their classic 4-3-3, but it didn't come without shocks. Roman stalwart and world-class defensive midfielder Daniele De Rossi dropped to the bench with Seydou Keita coming in, while Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa staved off the challenge of Davide Astori for a place in defence.
City opted for a 4-4-1-1 with Nasri behind Edin Dzeko, James Milner on the left again and Jesus Navas on the right. Eliaquim Mangala and Martin Demichelis partnered up in defence after Vincent Kompany failed a fitness test.
1. Roma Switches
Roma were on top early on and, via some clever switches of play, created room for long, diagonal balls and counter-attacks to test City's fairly high defensive line.
Miralem Pjanic played Gervinho in cutely as early as the third minute, then Francesco Totti found Jose Holebas on the overload on the left flank a few minutes later. The moves drew Joe Hart into action exceptionally early, and the Giallorossi were inches from taking a very early lead.
Next, Radja Nainggolan hit a long diagonal for Gervinho to latch onto in behind, and it became clear Rudi Garcia's tactics were to lure City over to press the ball and release their speedsters in behind. Zabaleta became a target, and City's midfield had to reel it in and drop deeper to prevent the defensive line creeping up so high.
Gervinho, with a little more composure, could have finished this tie in the first half (sound familiar?).
2. Mangala Nullifies Totti
Mangala continues to defy belief, with his ridiculously inconsistent performances leaving spectators at a loss on how to describe how good or bad he is.
After failing to handle the movement and speed of Shane Long—yes, Shane Long!—the Frenchman successfully wrapped up Francesco Totti by man-marking and preventing him from turning when the ball was delivered up to him.
Totti lacks pace but makes up for it in nous, and for the most part he still plays at a high level. Mangala began gambling on winning heads and out-muscling him in 50-50s and it worked—Roma lost their focal point and became too reliant on Gervinho as a long-ball option.
When athletic defenders tightly mark immobile forwards this can happen. The pendulum swings back City's way.
3. City Overloads
A scoreless draw would have sufficed for Roma, but credit to them they attacked and pushed numbers forward. It's possible Garcia could be criticised, though, for pushing too hard and pressing too aggressively.
When Keita dropped, Pjanic and Nainggolan pressed high from their flat central-midfield positions. This created pockets just behind the two and just in front of Keita. City began overloading these areas, and Nasri's goal came from a quick pass into that space from Gael Clichy followed by a flooding of the area.
Keita dropped to cover the runner, creating space for Nasri to score a wonder goal. After Stevan Jovetic replaced Edin Dzeko up front, City were able to feed the ball more successfully into those spaces and the Montenegrin would distribute and switch play.
Zabaleta's goal, to ice the result late on, was a product of this.
