Lyon faces Bayern Munich today with the hard task to beat the current best team in Europe. After eliminating two giants like Juventus and Manchester City, could the underdogs guarantee a spot in the Champions League Final? Follow this thread for more information on today's game

After a disappointing internal campaign in Ligue 1 (7th), Lyon has the chance to make up for their mistakes in case they beat Bayern. Since February the team has been playing in a different system, which seems to protect their defense and get the best out of their attackers.

These are the expected lineups for today. Lyon will keep their 5-3-2 formation, focused on their defensive organization and exploring transitions. They will face a team that is able to attack with a lot of players in central areas and expose defensive lines game after game.

After analyzing Lyon, I highlighted a few of their weaknesses during this season:
-Incapability to press constantly, giving time and space to player on the ball
-Bad coordination between midfielders to keep their shape
-Lack of adjustment in the back line when players drop/step.

By comparing Bayern’s strengths with Lyon’s weaknesses, I expect Bayern to be able to break through Lyon’s back line, shifting their midfield and finding gaps to explore by second runners and quick combinations in between lines. Follow the next tweets for a video explanation.

In previous games, Lyon had a medium-low press, waiting for City or Juve to take initiative and trusting their shape to block the central space. They did not risk with their press, their line was medium-high and a very block compact was hard to break. (pic by @JMateusPOV )

This Bayern team is much different than those 2 teams. They manage to explore simultaneously the space in between lines and behind the defenders by including several players in between lines, but also attracting the press to Thiago and the center backs.

This is something Lyon has struggled to stop this year. Their midfield struggles to shift quickly and there are communication and positioning mistakes in the back line who expose gaps in between players and force defenders to step out of position:

This is a short demonstration of some solutions Bayern might find against Lyon, and what spaces they will try to explore to drag defenders and penetrate in the back line:

If Lyon intends to play with a high line, as they did in Ligue 1 and for a few periods of time against Juventus and Man City, they will have to pay attention to Bayern’s long balls and smart counter movements in front of defenders like this play:

In this video, we can compare Lyon’s defensive performance against a couple of opponents who tried to explore their back. They lack pressure on the ball and their defenders do not adjust to that:

In the following demonstration you can see again how important Lewandowski is to hold defenders and drag them to create space for Muller, Gnabry, Coman to attack gaps in between players and the space in behind defenders.

To stop Bayern, Lyon will have to overperform themselves once again. They will need big performances from Aouar and Guimaraes in the midfield, and their back line will have to be near perfect. I expect difficulties for the frenchmen, but it is a semifinal and anything can happen.