This was the season that the Bundesliga moved on from Gegenpressing

Whether it be ultra-defensive performances from Dortmund and Bayern or tiki-taka systems from Leverkusen and Stuttgart, German football has finally moved on from the tactics of Klopp and Rangnick.

What was perhaps even more surprising than the fact that two German clubs were vying for a shot in the Champions League final this week was the fact that both Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich attempted to get there playing the exact same tactics. 

Instead of implementing Gegenpressing, the traditional tactic of choice in the Bundesliga, both Edin Terzic and Thomas Tuchel instead set their teams up to sit deep, soak up pressure and strangle any prospect of pace and attacking football out of the game. 

Rather than a homage to all the work done by Ralf Rangnick, Jürgen Klopp and countless other compatriots over the course of the last 20 years of German football, both sides instead better resembled Serie A teams of the 90s, or the dull, chess-like tussles between Manchester United and Chelsea when Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho were at the peak of their powers. This was German football, but not as we know it. 

As we now know, the similar tactics offered varying results. Dortmund expertly dispatched a Paris Saint-Germain side that were top-heavy and typically naive in the latter stage of a competition that have stung them countless times over the years. Bayern, in stark contrast, held on for as long as they could, before a well-versed Real Madrid team eventually broke through and dismantled a team that truly looked on their last legs by the end of the game.