Roma Women hosted PSG Women on Wednesday night at Stadio Tre Fontane for the fourth fixture of the UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage, and the game ended with an essential and big 1-3 win for the visitors. PSG consolidated their second spot in Group C with six points, one point behind Ajax, one point ahead of Bayern Munich and two points ahead of Roma, who are actually at the bottom of the standings with only four points out of four games.
The Giallorosse were only able to beat Ajax at home but struggled to achieve other positive results in this group stage apart from an important draw against Bayern Munich in Germany. This means that Roma will have to be much more determined to win at least one of the two remaining games and wait for the other results in order to ensure a qualification ticket to the knockout stage.
This tactical analysis article will shed light on what helped PSG win this match and how they were more powerful than their opponent, especially from an attacking perspective. At the same time, the analysis will explore Roma’s errors and what they will have to work on in terms of tactics to achieve positive results in the remaining two fixtures.
Line-ups
Alessandro Spugna opted for the 3-5-2 for this match, and it appeared that this formation did not really help Roma effectively resist or win against PSG. He used Camelia Ceasar as a goalkeeper, Lucia Di Guglielmo, Elena Linari and Moeka Minami as centre-backs, Saki Kumagai as a defensive midfielder, Manuela Giugliano and Giada Greggi as central midfielders, Annamaria Serturini and Eseosa Aigbogun as wingers while Valentina Giacinti and Evelyne Viens formed the attacking duo.
On the other hand, Joselyn Precheur started the match with a 5-3-2 formation, a rather defensive and counter-attacking formation that was mostly successful in limiting Roma’s attacking efficiency, punishing them by exploiting their defensive errors, and applying high pressing at key moments. He used Katarzyna Kiedrzynek as a goalkeeper, Jade Le Guilly as a right-back, Clare Hunt, Thiniba Samoura and Élisa De Almeida as centre-backs, Sakina Karchaoui as a left-back, Grace Geyoro, Jackie Groenen and Sandy Baltimore as central midfielders, while former Inter Milan’s Tabitha Chawinga and Marie-Antoinette Katoto were the team’s two strikers.
Roma’s errors and needed improvements
Roma’s performance lacked concretisation in the final third, whether in terms of shooting on target or key passes and possible assists. This was caused by PSG’s excessive number of players inside the box and their continuous disturbance to Roma’s attacking players, plus the lack of concentration of Roma’s players when executing the final pass.
This following example highlights the importance of providing an accurate final pass in such key situations like this one where Serturini was not able to provide a key pass to Giacinti, who was waiting inside the box and was surprisingly unmarked, too. Serturini, however, failed to execute that final pass and made her team miss a big goalscoring opportunity.
Moreover, the team looked very nervous during the first half and tried to go for the easy options in attack instead of trying to break PSG’s defence. That’s why we saw shots from distance that were off-target, such as the one executed by Giugliano in this picture.
She tried to shoot when she was not in a suitable shooting position at all and when she was obliged to use her weaker foot for shooting, too. In such situations, passing to a close teammate can be a more efficient decision than shooting while knowing deep inside that it will not be a dangerous shot on goal, especially when knowing that both Giacinti and Viens are actually waiting for a cross or a through pass.
With 18 shots and only six of them being on target, we cannot say that Roma have chance creation issues. But at the same time, this means that the Giallorosse are facing finishing issues and are becoming predictable, especially to teams with formidable defences like PSG. And in order to resolve this problem, a lot of work on finishing is needed, in addition to trying new attacking plans, schemes, and position changes to confuse defences.
Also, exploiting the advantage Roma have in terms of possession is necessary because having 58.73% in this regard while conceding three goals and scoring only one means that Roma’s possession was not appropriately exploited, and the number of chances missed during this match is worrying.
On a lot of occasions, it lacked only the accurate finishing touch despite having many clinical players in the team. As an example, Giacinti failed to shoot on target in this chance despite being very close to goal after running with the ball. It is true that she was marked by a PSG defender, yet she still could have at least directed her shot towards goal and not higher like she did, given that she is one of the most clinical and experienced strikers in Serie A at the moment.
The team paid the price of missing numerous goalscoring chances as they got punished by PSG on three occasions and could have conceded more, too. Although Roma won a high number of defensive duels with a 70.11% average, they still made some fatal errors in defence, like the one that caused the first goal following a wrong pass from Linari that helped PSG launch a counter-attack and eventually score the first goal of the match.
PSG’s exploitation of Roma’s errors
PSG played this match with a lot of concentration to details, and although they were very cautious in defence, they tried to exploit every single defensive mistake from Roma’s players. They did not have the advantage in possession, yet they were more clinical, progressive and realistic whenever they had the ball. In addition, they did not shoot a lot on goal, yet they were dangerous almost every time they shot on target, knowing that they shot eight times with four shots on target.
Chawinga and Katoto’s pace and excellent physical abilities made the difference upfront, as Roma’s defensive players were not able to cope with these two strikers’ speed and effective movements. The first goal highlights the complementarity between the two players as Katoto was the one who intercepted Linari’s wrong pass, fixed her direct opponent and crossed the ball to Chawinga.
The latter made an excellent first control that allowed her to get away from marking, oblige the goalkeeper to advance in an attempt to get the ball first and be able to reach the ball and put it inside the net before the goalkeeper arrives.
The second goal action highlights this complementarity between the two strikers even more as Chawinga used her pace and dribbling abilities from midfield to get away from numerous Roma players until she reached the box and was surrounded by five Roma players and was still able to provide an assist to Katoto who was, therefore, less marked since all attention was directed towards Chawinga. Katoto then did not have much trouble when trying to score this goal as she was relatively unmarked.
This goal also highlights Roma’s defensive issues and shows that they still have a lot of work to do in order to become more organised and more compact to not allow such penetrations.
Another more worrying goal for Roma’s defence and yet more useful goal for PSG was the one scored by Korbin Albert, who advanced towards the box to receive an excellent cross from the left wing and shoot with cold blood yet with excellent precision. This goal will surely give more confidence to the USWNT player as she is expected to become an even more helpful midfielder for PSG and the USWNT very soon.
This being said, PSG should consider their defensive errors as well and will have to take into consideration that they risked conceding numerous goals in this match if not for Kiedrzynek’s many excellent saves. Playing against a more dangerous attacking team with such a plan could have led to a PSG loss since many European teams can turn the chances that Roma had in this match into goals.
Therefore, PSG will have to address their defensive errors as soon as possible and try to avoid playing with a high defensive bloc during certain moments of the match because it can lead to conceding very dangerous counter-attacks such as the one shown below. In this example, Roma had three unmarked players waiting inside the box; each could have scored if they received an accurate pass. Therefore, playing against a more powerful team like Chelsea, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, or others with the same defensive tactics can result in conceding numerous goals from similar situations.
It is also true that PSG conceded a goal in this match, but it was a direct free-kick, and therefore, we can say that PSG were overall good enough from a defensive perspective, at least on paper, despite risking to concede numerous goals.
Conclusion
Roma should not be ashamed of their performance in this match as they did their best to score goals but were not successful in some attacking decisions, especially when it comes to finishing and final passes. Improving this attacking aspect can lead to much more positive results for Roma, whether in the UEFA Women’s Champions League or Serie A, as the team has what is needed to convince and win.
On the other hand, PSG got the win they needed from a difficult stadium after exploiting Roma’s defensive mistakes and resisting their attacking attempts. The credit for scoring the three goals goes mainly to Katoto and Chawinga, who were outstanding in this match and made things easier for the team by using their excellent physical abilities to break Roma’s defence.
But at the same time, they will have to be more careful about how they defend in the upcoming games because they risked conceding numerous goals in this match if Roma were more clinical in attack. Opting for a more balanced formation next time would probably be the right thing, especially when facing a more dangerous attacking team.
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