5 matches where Zinedine Zidane showed his tactical acumen

#1 vs Juventus, UCL final 2016-17

Casemiro scored the second for Real

Juventus went into the 2016-17 Champions League final with the best defensive record in Europe, conceding just 3 goals during the whole campaign. However, all of that changed dramatically.

Real were up against the best defence in Europe back then and needed to be clinical up front. However, it was Juve who made the better start, as Keylor Navas made a couple of crucial saves to keep the scores level in the opening 10 minutes.

Real Madrid slowly grew as the game went on and managed to take the lead through Cristiano Ronaldo, though Mario Mandzukic managed to level the scores with a good strike.

In the second half though, the game changed completely thanks to a little tactical tweak from Zidane. Juventus, in the first half, provided very little space to the Real Madrid attack and midfield to link up and operate in. They also won the ball higher up the pitch and carved out more chances than Madrid.

Zidane though then made Ronaldo play more on the shoulder of the last defender trying to make runs behind, stretching the Juventus defence. There were two occasions on which those runs were almost awarded. Ronaldo was marked by two defenders in the first half whenever he came deep to get the ball affecting his ability to do much.

As he started playing on last defender's shoulder and tried to make a run behind, Juventus defenders had to stay with him leaving more space in between the lines for the likes of Isco, Kroos and Modric to exploit. Real Madrid also started pressing Juventus high up the pitch and closed down the passing lanes quickly making it difficult for Juventus to come out of their own half.

The combined effect of this was that Real Madrid pinned Juventus deep in their own half and created more chances. They also started having more shots from range with Isco, Kroos, Modric and Casemiro all registering efforts as they had more space to operate. The second and the third goal were the rewards of this strategy as second came after a long-range effort from Casemiro and the third came after Modric won the ball in the attacking third as he pressed high.

After Real Madrid had scored 3 they eased down the pressing and Juventus started seeing more of the ball as they tried to get a goal to come back into the game. However, they pushed the defensive line high and Zidane again exploited it. He then introduced Asensio and Bale to make use of their speed on counters and it almost paid off on a couple of occasions. Real Madrid ending up scoring as many goals in the second half as Juventus had conceded in the whole tournament before the final.

Real won the game 4-1, completely destroying the Juventus defence and sent the world into a frenzy as they become the first team to win back-to-back UCL titles in the new format. Zidane again showed his tactical acumen by outclassing another great tactician in Max Allegri in Juventus dugout and led Real Madrid to a historic win.