Ancelotti Should Drop Muller and Martinez to Win the Champions League

Pressing the panic button after being edged 1-0 by last season's beaten UEFA Champions League finalists in their backyard is not something a coach as tenured as Carlo Ancelotti is likely to do.

However, this game was also a litmus test for Bayern Munich's chances in the competition, and Atletico Madrid asked some questions of the Bavarians they were not equipped to answer given how they lined up on Wednesday.

"It's never nice to lose," the Italian said at his post-match press conference. "We'll have to analyse the game and then look forward. We can still win this group."

"Atletico showed a killer instinct tonight, and we didn't," Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer added, per Bayern's Twitter account, before sounding a similarly forward-looking note. "We'll have another chance to beat them in Munich."

Bayern will indeed have a chance for revenge at the Allianz Arena in December, but given the Spaniards have contested two of the competition's last three finals—losing each time to bitter rivals Real Madrid—it is possible the sides will lock horns again if they both escape Group D, as expected.

Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press

This was Atletico's 26th home win from their last 31 European fixtures at the Estadio Vicente Calderon. Roared on by the majority of the nearly 55,000-strong crowd, they were unfortunate not to win by more. Yannick Carrasco broke the deadlock on 35 minutes, latching on to Antoine Griezmann's pass before firing the ball, left-footed, into Neuer's far bottom corner.

"I've been lucky that the ball went in after hitting the post," the burgeoning Belgium international said afterwards, per his team's Twitter account. "I'm very happy."

The ball may have struck the correct side of the post for Carrasco, but the truth is the goal had been coming despite Bayern enjoying the majority of possession in the Spanish capital, ending the game having had 63 per cent of the ball.

Scanning those numbers without watching the match, it would be tempting to conclude Bayern were the better team. Taken in conjunction with the game itself, however, they help to illustrate what Argentinian coach Diego Simeone's game plan was.

Atletico sat deep, picked Bayern off for the most part and were happy to hit the Bundesliga champions on the counter. They had 15 shots on the Bavarians' goal, compared to the Germans' 10 on theirs, and let's not forget it would have been 2-0 had Griezmann not crashed his penalty off the crossbar with the game drawing to a close.

The tactical shape of the game was precisely why Javi Martinez and Thomas Muller were ill-suited to delivering the victory for Bayern in Madrid on Wednesday. Though Arturo Vidal conceded the penalty, over the course of the 90 minutes, Martinez and Muller struggled more.

Martinez has been eminently impressive since arriving at the Allianz from Athletic Bilbao for a reported €40 million in 2012, initially anchoring the midfield before playing centre-back for the majority of last season with Jerome Boateng and Holger Badstuber injured for long periods.

A FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship winner with Spain, Martinez enjoyed nine clean sheets in the 16 Bundesliga games in which he featured in 2015-16 as Bayern wrapped up a record fourth consecutive German league title.

However, despite the close proximity of the two positions—defensive midfield and centre-back—on the pitch, there is one key attribute significantly more important in the latter role than the former: pace.

Allied to this, Carrasco, Griezmann et al. are positively rocket-fuelled compared to the attackers the likes of Eintracht Frankfurt and Darmstadt are able to put out.

Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press

Martinez's distribution remains impeccable—he completed 90 per cent of his 81 attempted passes, per Kicker—but when Atletico broke forwards at speed, he was found wanting.

The Spaniard managed to recover when a rare slip allowed Fernando Torres in early on, but injuries have deprived the Spanish striker of the explosive speed he boasted in his Liverpool heyday. Minutes later, Carrasco fired a warning shot against Neuer's legs after managing to take the long way around Martinez.

Joshua Kimmich came on for Thiago Alcantara on 66 minutes, and having scored five goals in all competitions for club and country recently, it would've be tempting to leave the 21-year-old in midfield.

However, his speed was enough to deal with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang—a man Bild once reported covered 30 metres faster than Usain Bolt (via Joe Wright of Goal)—when Bayern drew 0-0 with Borussia Dortmund in March. And at Europe's top table, perhaps he would prove a safer bet in the heart of the defence, especially against rapid, counter-attacking teams.

Muller, meanwhile, is a self-described Raumdeuter—an interpreter of space. Twenty Bundesliga goals last term, as well as eight in the Champions League, paint the picture of a master of his craft. However, just as Martinez has an easier time against teams halfway down the domestic table, so too does Muller.

In the German's defence, he plundered goals against Arsenal and Juventus last season. However, this year and last, against Atletico, there was simply no space to interpret. But for a first-half volley fired straight into the legs of goalkeeper Jan Oblak, Muller struggled to assert any influence on the game, and Ancelotti replaced him with flying Dutch winger Arjen Robben within the hour.

Robben—another speed demon, who clocked a world-record 37 kilometres per hour when the Netherlands beat then-world champions Spain at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, per FIFA (h/t AS, via ESPN FC)—was able to keep left-back Filipe Luis on the back foot and ended the game with one more shot in 30 minutes (three) than Muller had managed in an hour (two).

Vidal, captain Philipp Lahm and top scorer Robert Lewandowski might also believe they didn't have their strongest games in a Bayern shirt, but in the case of Martinez and Muller, their shortcomings against teams that set up like Atletico seem simple enough to account for given Bayern's personnel—and it's worth remembering Ancelotti can also call upon Douglas Costa and Kingsley Coman out wide.

Bayern executive chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said at the post-match dinner: "There's no use making a drama out of it. ... [It was] a fair result, sadly. But with four games left, all is still to play for, including top spot." And he is right.

However, if Bayern want to win against Atletico at the fourth time of asking, they would do well to take stock of the lessons from Wednesday.