2022/23 UEFA Champions League technical report overview: Building from the back and speed kings

There were plenty of talking points worth discussing in the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League, which concluded with Manchester City winning the tournament for the first time in their history following a 1-0 victory against Inter in Istanbul.

UEFA's Technical Observer panel has analysed some of the most interesting findings, with building from the back in fashion, Benfica doing all the running and goalkeeper André Onana impressing with his passing range and quality.

1) Scoring first key

There were 372 goals scored in the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League at a rate of 2.98 per game. For the first time, Man City finished as the competition's top scorers, with a total of 32 goals.

The most productive five-minute period for goals in a game was between 46 and 50 minutes, when 24 were scored – and the next between 51 and 55 minutes (23 goals).

This campaign offered further evidence of the importance of the opening goal in elite club football. Of the 117 games featuring one or more goals, the team who scored first earned at least a draw in 90% of them. In 88 matches, they went on to win.

2) Building from the back

The trend for teams to play out from the back is highlighted by the statistic that the ball did not leave the penalty box from 44% of goal kicks taken in 2022/23. Over four seasons, this figure has almost doubled since 2019/20, when it stood at 24%.

Inter's kicking from the back was much-changed from the previous season when, with Samir Handanović in goal, they were the team with most goal kicks received in their own box (69%) – a consequence of defenders taking almost half of them.

This time they had Onana in goal and he displayed the range of his kicking in a team whose quick, vertical play was noted by the UEFA technical observers. Displaying good judgement in his pass selection, Onana would kick short and long, and his range included balls wide to his full-backs or higher up the field. As a result, Inter virtually doubled their average pass distance – going from 17.6m, the second-lowest in the competition in 2021/22, to 33.4m.

3) Pep's possession play

Pep Guardiola's Man City team had the most progression attempts from midfield to attack (481) and this was a consequence of having so much possession – an unsurpassed average share of 66% in the group stage – and thereby so much of the ball in the midfield and final third. Given their style of play, it will surprise few people that the same went for Barcelona (65% possession), with 426 attempted progressions to the final third and 225 from defence to midfield.

A factor here could be that opposition sides retreat further back against these above-mentioned clubs. To quote one experienced coach, when teams drop deep in a 5-4-1 or 5-3-2 system, "your build-up is already in the opponents' half of the field".

4) Benfica's running men

Quarter-finalists Benfica were the team who covered the most distance per game on average, going in excess of 120km in six of their ten matches. To put this into the context of their playing style, they had two full-backs who looked to play high up the pitch and three creative midfielders in a 4-2-3-1 who rotated positions and provided forward runs in support of centre-forward Gonçalo Ramos.

Rafa Silva, as noted by the observer at the game where they covered the most ground of all – the 2-0 round of 16 win at Club Brugge – was a particularly willing runner in behind.

For their home win against Juventus, the observer noted other reasons for the distance covered: fast passing with lots of changing of positions and immediate attempts to regain the ball following turnovers. And with an average possession share of 49% across their ten matches, they had more need to win the ball back than sides who dominated possession.

At the other end of the scale, after two seasons in which they ranked last, Paris Saint-Germain were only marginally better as the second-bottom side above Maccabi Haifa.

5) Speed kings

Bayern's Alphonso Davies recorded the season's top speed with a sprint of 37.1km/h during his side's group fixture at Inter. Davies was playing at left-back that night and used his pace to advance into attacking positions, with Leroy Sané moving inside the pitch. As the match observer noted, the Canadian's speed was fundamental to Bayern's excellent attacking transitions.

Davies was also comfortably quicker than the next-ranked pair of Chelsea's Mykhailo Mudryk and Barcelona's Ousmane Dembélé, whose top speed was 36.6 km/h. In Mudryk's case, he recorded that figure playing for his previous club Shakhtar in the group stage at Celtic, where he struck the equalising goal on a quick transition and was a danger throughout thanks to his pace and dribbling skills.

Another player worth highlighting is Karim Adeyemi of Borussia Dortmund, whose top speed of 36.1km came in the round of 16 home game against Chelsea in which he sprinted from his own half to score a fabulous breakaway goal – prompting his coach, Edin Terzić, to jokingly compare him with the Road Runner cartoon character.

6) André Onana excels 

Inter goalkeeper Onana topped the charts for both clean sheets and goals prevented in 2022/23. With regards to the former, the Cameroonian became the second Inter goalkeeper after Francesco Toldo in 2002/03 to keep eight clean sheets over the course of a Champions League campaign, albeit Toldo played 18 games (including a two-legged qualifying tie) while Onana contested just 13.

He impressed the UEFA observers with his eye for a pass too. As Guardiola said of the Cameroonian after the final, "They put the incredible Onana to play in the positions of a holding midfielder."

In an era marked by goalkeepers increasingly involved in making the play, Onana's efforts embodied that trend on a night when he displayed the passing range of a deep midfielder.