How Bayern Munich shut down Barcelona’s usual routes to goal

After a 7-1 defeat in the league phase, Bayern Munich held Barcelona to a 1-1 draw with a disciplined 4-5-1 block, though Franziska Kett’s late red card may yet prove decisive.

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José Barcala’s Bayern Munich faced another challenge from Barcelona after a heavy defeat on the opening matchday of the league phase of the Uefa Women’s Champions League. After a 7-1 defeat in that game, the Bavarian giants went on to score multiple times in every game since then - a run that ended against Barcelona themselves last night.

With a 1-1 draw against the Catalan side, Bayern Munich continued to be unbeaten since that loss and gave a much better account of their quality in this semi-final tie. Despite conceding early again, the German champions stuck to their game plan and restricted Pere Romeu’s side as much as could be expected.

The numbers in the game are still heavily in favour of Barcelona, but the German side managed to control the threat they posed. Romeu's side had the same number of shots as the last time the two sides met (21), but they had fewer shots on target (7 to 13) and a lower xG (1.48 to 1.9). Their touches in the opposition box were down from 53 to 42, despite their final-third entries being up from 57 to 93.