Yamal, Saka, Kvaratskhelia: How I would take on the Champions League’s elite wingers

As a former full-back, I am always watching players I would have had to play directly against to work out how to nullify them — and this year’s Champions League has been full of interesting challenges.

Michael Olise, Vinicius Junior, Bukayo Saka, Lamine Yamal, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembele have all shone. They can all score and set up goals in so many different ways, and the difficulties they present to defenders are highly complex.

The roots of these kinds of attackers probably go back to the mid-1990s. The first player who comes to mind is Marc Overmars from Ajax, who combined classic wing play with quick, precise dribbling infield. Later, my Bayern Munich team-mates Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben evolved that type of wing player further.

They were a constant threat with their quick changes of direction and their ability to finish.

Today, people talk about how their traits were predictable and how you knew what they were going to do with the ball before they did it. Actually, from a team-mate’s perspective, that was really helpful. Depending on which of Ribery or Robben I was playing behind, I could adjust my game to complement them — with and without the ball — allowing our side of the pitch to be more effective.

But all of these modern equivalents pose different problems, and I do find myself thinking how I and my former team-mates would approach facing some of these players.

At Bayern, I really love Michael Olise’s versatility.

He’s been so good for Bayern this season and has carried such a threat. His exceptional ball control and vision allow him to dribble dangerously, but also to make cutting passes. Both matter. He is a playmaker and a ball-carrier.

What would I do? Expose him to as much pressure as I could — attack him early, as soon as he receives a pass, but then keep that attention constant. In that situation, keeping the right distance as a defender is crucial: you have to be close enough to disrupt someone like Olise, but still far enough away to guard against his explosiveness.

Too close and he will just pass and move at a speed that is incredibly difficult to contain.

Olise runs at Mainz’s Phillipp Mwene (Christian Kaspar-Bartke/Getty Images)

Vinicius Junior impresses me a lot. Particularly his ability to do things at such high speed and to help begin attacking moves in his own half. That makes him incredibly difficult to cope with from a full-back’s perspective.

Perhaps what is less appreciated is just how physically fit he is and how he is able to hold his acceleration: he can run 70 metres without losing speed, and he can still finish brilliantly at the end of one of those runs.

His dribbling and changes of direction remind me of Robben and Ribery. However, he tends to be less diligent defensively, which offers opportunities to attack in transitional moments. Defending him with the ball is harder. I don’t think Vinicius Jr can ever be neutralised, but it’s crucial not to give him space to move inside.

You have to deny him the angles and space that allow him to drive towards the penalty box. Push him outwards, always towards the touchline.

Vinicius Junior in full flight (Gokhan Taner / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

Bukayo Saka has made a huge leap in his development under coach Mikel Arteta. He plays with such clarity of thought and vision. I think his threat is most pronounced in the final third. That sounds obvious, but he is always looking to combine with other players and make runs; look at the goal he scored in the Santiago Bernabeu a few weeks ago.

Maybe that part of his game is not celebrated enough.

He is clearly a really purposeful and precise dribbler, too, so I think dealing with him as an all-round threat is about cutting off the supply. The best approach is to limit his touches and to try to block the passing lanes around him. He needs to be isolated.

Make sure he only has poor options around him and, as much as possible, keep him on his weaker right foot.

Saka holds off Vinicius Jr at the Bernabeu (Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images)

Lamine Yamal is astonishing.

For his age, he is astounding. He makes quick decisions, never takes more touches of the ball than he needs and often finds his team-mates with just a few touches. He can outplay opponents with a frequency and precision that only the very best possess, and gives Barcelona the ability to create chances in all sorts of ways.

For example, think of Saturday’s Copa del Rey final and the two goals he created. The first for Pedri, by drawing defenders in on the goal line and cutting a pass back to the edge of the box. And then the second, with the long pass for Ferran Torres. Did you notice how close his marker was and how little space Yamal had when he played that ball? Incredible!

Defending him requires maximum concentration at all times — everywhere — and you need to have the ability to anticipate his movements, too, because you don’t have time to react to them.

He has to be on his weaker foot at all times. He cannot have any space.

The distance Khvicha Kvaratskhelia can carry the ball is remarkable, more so that he is still dangerous at the end of those runs. He gives something to all his teams. He’s the star for the Georgian national team, but he works and defends as fiercely as anyone in that side. He is a fighter, both offensively and defensively; it is in his nature.

That hard work reminds me of Ribery. I can imagine that Kvaratskhelia’s team-mates are grateful to play with him and that they always feel as if he is part of their side, regardless of what is happening at any moment during games.

Kvaratskhelia takes on Nice’s Mohamed Abdelmonem (Catherine Steenkeste/Getty Images for Qatar Airways)

The strength of his work against the ball can be the deciding factor in the Champions League semi-final against Arsenal — and that makes me think of some of the challenges I faced in my career alongside my team-mates with Bayern and Germany.

I remember the 2010 World Cup quarter-final against Argentina, when we were able to stop Lionel Messi through collective defending and by taking really precise responsibility for space. With Messi, we defenders knew that if we stood too far apart, he would treat us like slalom poles. But if we stood too close together, there would be confusion over whose responsibility it was to actually tackle him.

It was a really fine balance and it took so much practice and organisation.

Preparing for Cristiano Ronaldo was just as much work, but in a different way. Ronaldo is not a dribbler. His outstanding strengths — at that time — were his speed and his finishing. The key with him was to eliminate the space in which he wanted to receive the final pass that he was always, always looking for.

I played against another winger who is in the semi-finals of the Champions League: Ousmane Dembele. His abilities are obvious to everyone, but he was also so unpredictable — and he still is.

You never knew which direction he was going to move in, or whether he was going to pass left or right. He is so instinctive and very, very difficult to play against. In my last season (2016-17), he and Borussia Dortmund beat us in the semi-final of the DFB-Pokal at the Allianz Arena.

One brilliant assist. One great goal.

A young Dembele confronts Lahm in 2016 (TF-Images/Getty Images)

What these different players show is how complex being a full-back can be. Being clever helps. I learnt early on from my coaches: “Diving in is the last option — and if you rely on that option, you have to play the ball. Otherwise, stay on your feet and run after it.”

It means that, rather than desperate tackles, good defending depends on game intelligence, experience and intuition. For me personally, the psychological and mental components were also really important. This means shaping your body position and behaviour in such a way that you suggest options to the attacker — try to get your opponent to do what you want, in the areas that suit your strengths rather than theirs.

And that’s true as a team, too.

You have to defend as a group. That can mean not trying to win the ball and just slowing a player down to give your team-mates time to recover their positions. Sometimes the job is to direct an opponent towards the strength of your own team — the midfield, for instance, or the centre-backs.

A footballer should know what they can do and what they can’t. They also need to know what their team-mates can do and how they can help. I knew how to defend together with Ribery and Robben, or with Toni Kroos, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Jerome Boateng. I knew what they needed from me. They knew what I needed from them.

The teams that best understand that will probably find themselves in Munich at the end of this season, for the Champions League final.

(Top photo: Siu Wu/picture alliance via Getty Images)

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