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Ahead of Thursday’s draw for the 2022-23 Champions League group stage, UEFA has released its annual technical report into last season’s competition.
The report breaks down the entire 2021-22 tournament into great detail, examining the technical and tactical aspects of every game from the first round through to the final, which saw Real Madrid emerge victorious with a 1-0 verdict over Liverpool at the Stade de France, Paris.
As usual, the report was compiled using input from UEFA’s select technical observer group — a group that included Frank de Boer, Gareth Southgate, Robbie Keane and Claude Makelele, among many notable names. For the first time, at least one member of the technical observer group was in attendance at every Champions League game — that’s 125 games in total from matchday 1 onwards.
The entire UEFA document is 106 pages long and densely packed with information. We understand if the mere thought of trawling through such a weighty tome is daunting. Thankfully we’ve pressed ahead and picked through the dossier on your behalf, cherry-picking the most interesting facts, figures and fundamentals to give you the main takeaways.
– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, more (U.S.)
Liverpool were victims of their own success
While it was obvious to all that Liverpool were starting to flag by the time they reached the Champions League final, the UEFA technical observer group made a point of singling out the Reds’ heavy workload as a key factor in their struggle to compete in Paris.
Jurgen Klopp’s side were chasing an unprecedented Quadruple, and while their willingness to fight on four fronts brought them tantalisingly close to making history, in their breakdown of the final itself, the panel were left wondering whether such a long and arduous campaign was “finally told in Liverpool’s 63rd match” of the season.
Belgium coach Roberto Martinez noted in the report that he “didn’t see their normal energy and they didn’t have the space for the front…
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Source : espn
