Beyond pairing the French champions with a team which finished third in the Bundesliga, PSG against Leipzig is being billed as a showdown between Qatar and Red Bull.The money-men from the French capital have the financial clout of their Qatar Sports Investments owners behind them, while Leipzig have drawn on a sponsorship model which allies them to a host of Red Bull-affiliated clubs. Assisted by Trent Alexander-Arnold with a cross following a corner.Substitution, FC Red Bull Salzburg. They were happy enough to sit off the Salzburg backline when they had possession of the ball and they didn’t usually attempt to force possession away from them. In the end they got two more punches in. However, after five months of protests and talks between the club owners and traditional fans, no compromise was reached. They are the defending League and Cup champions. The team Leipzig face in that challenge is a club with far more European pedigree but with no less scrutiny over their backing.Since their Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) owners rolled into town in 2011, PSG have become a club synonymous with their petrostate sponsors.If Leipzig’s tale is one of a company avowedly using a club for marketing clout, then PSG have the ambitions of an entire state hitched to it.Far beyond the marketing ambitions of a mere energy drinks brand, the PSG project is a way for a state to purchase cultural leverage and ‘sportswash’ its image, or so the argument goes.The French club's appearance at this stage of the Champions League may be far less of a surprise than Leipzig’s, but is open to equal resentment among fans. At the beginning of the 2017–18 season, After eleven failed attempts to reach the group stage, Red Bull only managed to qualify directly to the In the years from 2013 to 2019, Salzburg earned €300 million from transfers of players like Legend: GF = Goals For. However, while the defenders have to follow the runs in order to prevent the Salzburg forwards from having a clear run through on goal, they did also get dragged out of position in the process.The two forwards’ runs frequently created a large gap between the two Lyon centre-backs and Salzburg exploited that space on multiple occasions by having their attacking midfielder attack the space, which we can see him doing in this image above.Salzburg created a variety of goalscoring opportunities for the attacking midfielder, as well as their two centre forwards, in this manner throughout Wednesday’s game and this, combined with the effectiveness of these runs in getting the forwards in behind via long-balls made these runs arguably the most important element of the Austrian side’s offensive tactics in this quarter-final win.To conclude this tactical analysis piece, it’s clear that both of these two teams enjoyed plenty of success in attack. In 33-year-old head coach Julian Nagelsmann, they have one of the most exciting managerial prospects in world football – a man nicknamed ‘Baby Mourinho’ and who has already turned down the advances of Real Madrid.Emerging from a Champions League group containing fellow semi-finalists Lyon as well as Benfica and Russian champions Zenit St. Petersburg, Leipzig cruised past Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham in the last 16 before edging out Diego Simeone’s Atletico in the quarterfinals. Salzburg’s tactics, in terms of how their two centre forwards were utilised, as well as their high press, played a pivotal role in carving out a plethora of goalscoring opportunities for them in this fixture, while Lyon’s exploitation of Salzburg’s difficulty with coping with long-balls in behind, as well as the French side’s tactical adaptations in the second half – including the introduction of Wissa to this game – also helped them to threaten Salzburg’s goal on numerous occasions throughout this game.In the end, Salzburg just about edged it in this one, however, both sides displayed plenty of interesting tactics in this contest.22-year-old football tactics writer from the Republic of Ireland.Game 28 of the Bundesliga was arranged to play during the midweek. Divock Origi replaces Naby Keita.Offside, FC Red Bull Salzburg. during a game against Leipzig in 2016. The image above shows us Wissa just after receiving possession of the ball inside the final third after dropping from his more traditional centre forward position.We can see that as he controls the ball in this deeper position, he has attracted an opposition defender with him via his movement and this creates space for one of his teammates to continue their run and probe into that position.As this passage of play moves on, Wissa spreads the ball out wide, finding a teammate there, who goes on to play the ball into the box, finding the Lyon player who had ran into the space created by Wissa’s movement and this results in a goal, so it’s clear that Wissa’s introduction to this match had a big impact on Lyon’s tactics and their efficiency in front of goal in the second half.In the second half of this game, Lyon placed greater emphasis on the role of their two full-backs in the build-up. "And I love it, I really love it that my team is so smart that they listen and they put in a shift in like that. As we can see, the left-back does have plenty of space to move into on the wing and the midfielder does ultimately manage to find him and his run after carrying the ball into the opposition half.Judging by how effective this move was, this might have been a combination that Salzburg would’ve looked to have used on more occasions had they been able to build through the centre more often than they were.Additionally, Salzburg were also comfortable with playing the ball long from the back and exploiting their two forwards’ runs into the channels beside the central defenders and the full-backs during this game.Salzburg’s forwards were constantly making these runs during Wednesday’s fixture and they caused Lyon a lot of problems via their runs into these channels.