In the Zone: How Barcelona overcame Bayern's marking in impressive triumph

There are several reasons why Barcelona defeated Bayern München 4-1 on Wednesday, but a key one was how Hansi Flick's side overcame the one-to-one marking approach of Vincent Kompany's players.

This is evident in the video above, which shows firstly the extent of Bayern's individual press all over the pitch.

In a fascinating game full of world-class players going out to win from the start, both teams began with a very high defensive line, Barcelona's back four defending from the halfway line and using a zonal marking system when Bayern had the ball, while their opponents employed a double pivot, with both Thomas Müller and Harry Kane happy to drop deeper and provide a link.

Both sides had players making deep runs and challenged their opponents' back line with balls in behind. Barcelona's first goal came from one such pass. In clip 1, we see former Bayern forward Robert Lewandowski drop deep to take the ball with his back to goal and move it back towards his own goal. He's marked tightly by Minjae Kim as Bayern's players have been pulled of position.

Behind the pair, Fermín López and Raphinha – who are being man-marked by Joshua Kimmich and Dayot Upamecano, respectively – swap positions. It's simple but so effective because Fermín López has bought himself enough time and space to play a ball towards Raphinha, who only has Manuel Neuer to beat.

A goal follows as Raphinha advances wide to the left of Neuer – who dives and almost reaches the ball – before finishing. It's an incredible start for Barça, an opening goal in the first minute, and all but the 3,000 travelling Bayern fans in the 50,312 crowd respond. The atmosphere is set for the night.

In the second part of the video, we see Barcelona run in behind defenders. Upamecano vs Lewandowski was an intriguing cat and mouse battle all night, and here we see Lewandowski pull Upamecano into a position where a free space, shown by the box, is cleared. It's that space which Fermín López runs into, taking advantage of a defensive header before setting up Lewandowski to restore the lead at 2-1.

Player of the Match Raphinha added two more for a hat-trick and, thanks to those goals and the lead, Barcelona enjoyed themselves with more possession and confidence. Barça did other things well too. Their attacking players, including Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, switched sides to unsettle the Bundesliga leaders and the tactics paid off.

The youthfulness of Barcelona's team was also notable, with an average age of 24.5 years in their starting XI compared to Bayern's 29.5. Six Barça players were aged 21 or under, which is very impressive. They also had the individual talents of players including Raphinha, Yamal and Pedri, who can take out opponents by dribbling past them. That's a wonderful asset to have for any team, and Barcelona used them all to enjoy one of their greatest triumphs in recent times.