Why Bernardo Silva and not Riyad Mahrez? How did Gnabry escape from punishment?

The majority of mistakes in football are compound mistakes that come as a result of a small one and then turn into a sequel of some bigger.

The night before the match, I expected that Bernardo would be the right winger for City and not Riyad Mahrez, not only for Bernardo's various capabilities and characteristics on the offensive and defensive levels and the way he pressed opponents that Pep indicated after the Leipzig meeting with his abilities by pressing three players in one move, or supporting Akanji defensively. Rather, because Bernardo is the player who is able to gather more than one of the opponent's players around him and free his teammates in good spaces to receive and advance the ball. In addition, he is an unexpected player and can surprise the opponent.

Let's go.

When Siva had the ball on the City’s right flank, it could be seen that Bayern had to double the press on Silva, so they had Davis with one of Sane or Goretzka to have 2VS1. But when Gundo drifted into the right inner corridor to draw and pin De Ligt, So the situation turned to 3VS2. with this movement of Gundo and Silva gathering more than player around him, there was a space in the half space opened up for one of the double pivot, Stones or Rodri.

Rodri’s Masterclass Goal.

Initial Positions from City and Bayern players in the defensive third of Bayern.

Figure 1: Once again, When The ball was moved to Silva, Davis and Goretzka had numerical superiority on Silva.

Figure 2: in Figure two, we should notice the position of Gnabry marking Rodri. When a player returns to his defensive area, he must adhere to several references such as the ball and its place, space, opponent, and colleague. He has to choose the correct and optimal decision for the movement through those references.

Figure 3: Stones had the ball, Gundo pinned De Ligt. with the ball passed to Stones, Gnabry did not choose the right decision by leaving Rodri alone, because Bayern had Musiala in advanced position to have a player forward to attacking transition.

Figure 4: Stones got the ball back to Silva, in this moment when Gnabry took his decision to push up higher on the pitch and Leave Rodri's observation. So Rodri has space and time to turn and strike to score the first goal for City. He should have observed the position od Sane marking stones and Kimmich between the two CBS to offer the defensive depth.

But what about Kimmich, his position and his mistake in trying to intercepting Rodri’s shot. As we see, Rodri received the ball and managed to dribble the ball down Musiala.

After beating Musiala, Kimmich made a quick scan to assure that Haalan did not move behind him and not to allow City players of KDB and Jack to have a dynamic superiority with the off the ball movement. we can agree that the time when Kimmich scanned was bad and he could have pushed up to close down Rodri’s Shot by using the reference of the recovery limit line.

Kimmich also used a bad physical position to intercept the shot, so he had to enlarge his body as much as possible and not give the ball his back.

To conclude, Silva is one of the best City’s player in the match, and helped in gathering opponent’s Players around him to get his mates free.