Picture the scene. It is Matchday 1 of the Champions League at the Parc des Princes. The players of Paris-Saint Germain and Atalanta have just returned for the second half. In the centre circle stands a lone man in navy blue, JoĂŁo Neves, waiting to restart the match. He takes five steps back. Then he moves forward and, like a rugby player, sends the ball soaring on a diagonal trajectory towards the touchline. It drops just the right side of the corner flag on the left. Right from the resumption, Paris have advanced the ball to the very top end of the pitch.
Over in Bilbao, something similar happens as Arsenal kick off at San Mamés. Declan Rice stands over the ball in the centre circle, his back to the Athletic Club players. On the whistle, he rolls the ball back more than 20 metres to goalkeeper David Raya. Cue a big, angled kick over to the left side of the pitch, in the final third. There, Mikel Merino outjumps his marker and nods the ball on. Immediately, Athletic are under pressure and concede a throw-in.
These two moments came up in a recent conversation with an eminent football coach. He explained how on both occasions the aim was to get into a position to press the opposition as high up the pitch as quickly as possible.
The conversation then flowed on to the enhanced prominence of set plays generally. He agreed that set pieces now receive more attention on the training ground than ever before. To go back to the 1980s, for example, Graham Taylor – a coach famed for his set plays with Watford, Aston Villa and England – would typically work on free-kicks and corners only the day before a game.
Now, in an age when clubs have specialist set-piece coaches, such as Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover, they use video and data analysis to work in increasingly forensic detail on how to gain profit from dead-ball situations – even from kick-offs, as cited above.
According to one experienced club analyst, a team’s schedule will often determine how much they hone their set plays in any given week. Teams playing in the Champions League in midweek, for example, will usually have only one full training session the day before their next domestic fixture to work on tactics and set-play organisation. Yet teams with no midweek fixture might do three or four sessions involving set pieces – perhaps a couple related specifically to their next opponents, and one or two on their own principles.
It was interesting to read about the approach of Davide Ancelotti when he discussed set plays with UEFA’s game insights unit recently. Now coach of Brazil’s Botafogo but until last summer assistant coach at Real Madrid, Ancelotti explained: “I like to do it in almost every training session, but in small doses – it could be ten minutes. I work almost every day in the first part of the session, normally after the warm-up. I like to do it at the beginning of the session, when they are more focused.”
Picture the scene. It is Matchday 1 of the Champions League at the Parc des Princes. The players of Paris-Saint Germain and Atalanta have just returned for the second half. In the centre circle stands a lone man in navy blue, JoĂŁo Neves, waiting to restart the match. He takes five steps back. Then he moves forward and, like a rugby player, sends the ball soaring on a diagonal trajectory towards the touchline. It drops just the right side of the corner flag on the left. Right from the resumption, Paris have advanced the ball to the very top end of the pitch.
Over in Bilbao, something similar happens as Arsenal kick off at San Mamés. Declan Rice stands over the ball in the centre circle, his back to the Athletic Club players. On the whistle, he rolls the ball back more than 20 metres to goalkeeper David Raya. Cue a big, angled kick over to the left side of the pitch, in the final third. There, Mikel Merino outjumps his marker and nods the ball on. Immediately, Athletic are under pressure and concede a throw-in.
These two moments came up in a recent conversation with an eminent football coach. He explained how on both occasions the aim was to get into a position to press the opposition as high up the pitch as quickly as possible.
The conversation then flowed on to the enhanced prominence of set plays generally. He agreed that set pieces now receive more attention on the training ground than ever before. To go back to the 1980s, for example, Graham Taylor – a coach famed for his set plays with Watford, Aston Villa and England – would typically work on free-kicks and corners only the day before a game.
Now, in an age when clubs have specialist set-piece coaches, such as Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover, they use video and data analysis to work in increasingly forensic detail on how to gain profit from dead-ball situations – even from kick-offs, as cited above.
According to one experienced club analyst, a team’s schedule will often determine how much they hone their set plays in any given week. Teams playing in the Champions League in midweek, for example, will usually have only one full training session the day before their next domestic fixture to work on tactics and set-play organisation. Yet teams with no midweek fixture might do three or four sessions involving set pieces – perhaps a couple related specifically to their next opponents, and one or two on their own principles.
It was interesting to read about the approach of Davide Ancelotti when he discussed set plays with UEFA’s game insights unit recently. Now coach of Brazil’s Botafogo but until last summer assistant coach at Real Madrid, Ancelotti explained: “I like to do it in almost every training session, but in small doses – it could be ten minutes. I work almost every day in the first part of the session, normally after the warm-up. I like to do it at the beginning of the session, when they are more focused.”
Intriguingly, my abovementioned conversation with a top coach also featured the question of how young centre-backs, brought up in an era of reduced heading (owing to rules over player well-being) and fewer higher balls (due to recent trends such as less crossing) would now cope with a bombardment of balls into the box.
In England, the set-play theme generated ample discussion this autumn amid a rise in goals from that source this season. To offer a tongue-in-cheek summary, now that Pep Guardiola, the architect of tiki-taka, has taken to using a huge battering ram up front (aka Erling Haaland), it has felt like the rest of the coaching fraternity – no longer under pressure to “play the right way” (to use that terrible phrase) – have felt free to embrace their inner Tony Pulis. And for those not familiar with Pulis, his Stoke City side were famed for their long throws from Rory Delap (memo to younger readers: that’s Chelsea striker Liam’s dad).
Even in Spain, Marca ran a piece about long throws, recalling how Benito Floro, once coach of Real Madrid, gave a conference in the 1990s entitled “The importance of throw-ins in attacking football”.
As it is, Spanish clubs have struggled this term against English opponents’ dead balls, with Liverpool beating both Madrid clubs thanks to headed goals from Dominik Szoboszlai’s superb deliveries. Atleti also suffered against Arsenal and Barcelona against Chelsea, leading Roberto MartĂnez to declare that “in the Premier League they work the dead-ball situations better than any league in Europe”. Yet overall, the percentage of goals scored from set plays, excluding penalties, in the first four matchdays of the Champions League was 16.3%, not much more than the 15.7% recorded across the whole of last season.
To go back to Davide Ancelotti and Real Madrid, they offered an illuminating example last term of what is – and has always been – the most vital ingredient of all. This is a club who would not have won either of their Champions League finals against Atleti in the 2010s without Sergio Ramos’ goals from set pieces, while the opening goal of 2024 final triumph was a Dani Carvajal header from a corner. The takers? Luka Modrić for the first, Toni Kroos for the second and third. Last season, with Kroos gone and Modrić no longer a fixed starter, they slipped from joint-first for goals from corners to scoring just one from 93.
As my coaching friend put it in the conversation which sparked this column: “The delivery is the key.” Â
Picture the scene. It is Matchday 1 of the Champions League at the Parc des Princes. The players of Paris-Saint Germain and Atalanta have just returned for the second half. In the centre circle stands a lone man in navy blue, JoĂŁo Neves, waiting to restart the match. He takes five steps back. Then he moves forward and, like a rugby player, sends the ball soaring on a diagonal trajectory towards the touchline. It drops just the right side of the corner flag on the left. Right from the resumption, Paris have advanced the ball to the very top end of the pitch.
Over in Bilbao, something similar happens as Arsenal kick off at San Mamés. Declan Rice stands over the ball in the centre circle, his back to the Athletic Club players. On the whistle, he rolls the ball back more than 20 metres to goalkeeper David Raya. Cue a big, angled kick over to the left side of the pitch, in the final third. There, Mikel Merino outjumps his marker and nods the ball on. Immediately, Athletic are under pressure and concede a throw-in.
These two moments came up in a recent conversation with an eminent football coach. He explained how on both occasions the aim was to get into a position to press the opposition as high up the pitch as quickly as possible.
The conversation then flowed on to the enhanced prominence of set plays generally. He agreed that set pieces now receive more attention on the training ground than ever before. To go back to the 1980s, for example, Graham Taylor – a coach famed for his set plays with Watford, Aston Villa and England – would typically work on free-kicks and corners only the day before a game.
Now, in an age when clubs have specialist set-piece coaches, such as Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover, they use video and data analysis to work in increasingly forensic detail on how to gain profit from dead-ball situations – even from kick-offs, as cited above.
According to one experienced club analyst, a team’s schedule will often determine how much they hone their set plays in any given week. Teams playing in the Champions League in midweek, for example, will usually have only one full training session the day before their next domestic fixture to work on tactics and set-play organisation. Yet teams with no midweek fixture might do three or four sessions involving set pieces – perhaps a couple related specifically to their next opponents, and one or two on their own principles.
It was interesting to read about the approach of Davide Ancelotti when he discussed set plays with UEFA’s game insights unit recently. Now coach of Brazil’s Botafogo but until last summer assistant coach at Real Madrid, Ancelotti explained: “I like to do it in almost every training session, but in small doses – it could be ten minutes. I work almost every day in the first part of the session, normally after the warm-up. I like to do it at the beginning of the session, when they are more focused.”
Picture the scene. It is Matchday 1 of the Champions League at the Parc des Princes. The players of Paris-Saint Germain and Atalanta have just returned for the second half. In the centre circle stands a lone man in navy blue, JoĂŁo Neves, waiting to restart the match. He takes five steps back. Then he moves forward and, like a rugby player, sends the ball soaring on a diagonal trajectory towards the touchline. It drops just the right side of the corner flag on the left. Right from the resumption, Paris have advanced the ball to the very top end of the pitch.
Over in Bilbao, something similar happens as Arsenal kick off at San Mamés. Declan Rice stands over the ball in the centre circle, his back to the Athletic Club players. On the whistle, he rolls the ball back more than 20 metres to goalkeeper David Raya. Cue a big, angled kick over to the left side of the pitch, in the final third. There, Mikel Merino outjumps his marker and nods the ball on. Immediately, Athletic are under pressure and concede a throw-in.
These two moments came up in a recent conversation with an eminent football coach. He explained how on both occasions the aim was to get into a position to press the opposition as high up the pitch as quickly as possible.
The conversation then flowed on to the enhanced prominence of set plays generally. He agreed that set pieces now receive more attention on the training ground than ever before. To go back to the 1980s, for example, Graham Taylor – a coach famed for his set plays with Watford, Aston Villa and England – would typically work on free-kicks and corners only the day before a game.
Now, in an age when clubs have specialist set-piece coaches, such as Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover, they use video and data analysis to work in increasingly forensic detail on how to gain profit from dead-ball situations – even from kick-offs, as cited above.
According to one experienced club analyst, a team’s schedule will often determine how much they hone their set plays in any given week. Teams playing in the Champions League in midweek, for example, will usually have only one full training session the day before their next domestic fixture to work on tactics and set-play organisation. Yet teams with no midweek fixture might do three or four sessions involving set pieces – perhaps a couple related specifically to their next opponents, and one or two on their own principles.
It was interesting to read about the approach of Davide Ancelotti when he discussed set plays with UEFA’s game insights unit recently. Now coach of Brazil’s Botafogo but until last summer assistant coach at Real Madrid, Ancelotti explained: “I like to do it in almost every training session, but in small doses – it could be ten minutes. I work almost every day in the first part of the session, normally after the warm-up. I like to do it at the beginning of the session, when they are more focused.”
Picture the scene. It is Matchday 1 of the Champions League at the Parc des Princes. The players of Paris-Saint Germain and Atalanta have just returned for the second half. In the centre circle stands a lone man in navy blue, JoĂŁo Neves, waiting to restart the match. He takes five steps back. Then he moves forward and, like a rugby player, sends the ball soaring on a diagonal trajectory towards the touchline. It drops just the right side of the corner flag on the left. Right from the resumption, Paris have advanced the ball to the very top end of the pitch.
Over in Bilbao, something similar happens as Arsenal kick off at San Mamés. Declan Rice stands over the ball in the centre circle, his back to the Athletic Club players. On the whistle, he rolls the ball back more than 20 metres to goalkeeper David Raya. Cue a big, angled kick over to the left side of the pitch, in the final third. There, Mikel Merino outjumps his marker and nods the ball on. Immediately, Athletic are under pressure and concede a throw-in.
These two moments came up in a recent conversation with an eminent football coach. He explained how on both occasions the aim was to get into a position to press the opposition as high up the pitch as quickly as possible.
The conversation then flowed on to the enhanced prominence of set plays generally. He agreed that set pieces now receive more attention on the training ground than ever before. To go back to the 1980s, for example, Graham Taylor – a coach famed for his set plays with Watford, Aston Villa and England – would typically work on free-kicks and corners only the day before a game.
Now, in an age when clubs have specialist set-piece coaches, such as Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover, they use video and data analysis to work in increasingly forensic detail on how to gain profit from dead-ball situations – even from kick-offs, as cited above.
According to one experienced club analyst, a team’s schedule will often determine how much they hone their set plays in any given week. Teams playing in the Champions League in midweek, for example, will usually have only one full training session the day before their next domestic fixture to work on tactics and set-play organisation. Yet teams with no midweek fixture might do three or four sessions involving set pieces – perhaps a couple related specifically to their next opponents, and one or two on their own principles.
It was interesting to read about the approach of Davide Ancelotti when he discussed set plays with UEFA’s game insights unit recently. Now coach of Brazil’s Botafogo but until last summer assistant coach at Real Madrid, Ancelotti explained: “I like to do it in almost every training session, but in small doses – it could be ten minutes. I work almost every day in the first part of the session, normally after the warm-up. I like to do it at the beginning of the session, when they are more focused.”
Intriguingly, my abovementioned conversation with a top coach also featured the question of how young centre-backs, brought up in an era of reduced heading (owing to rules over player well-being) and fewer higher balls (due to recent trends such as less crossing) would now cope with a bombardment of balls into the box.
In England, the set-play theme generated ample discussion this autumn amid a rise in goals from that source this season. To offer a tongue-in-cheek summary, now that Pep Guardiola, the architect of tiki-taka, has taken to using a huge battering ram up front (aka Erling Haaland), it has felt like the rest of the coaching fraternity – no longer under pressure to “play the right way” (to use that terrible phrase) – have felt free to embrace their inner Tony Pulis. And for those not familiar with Pulis, his Stoke City side were famed for their long throws from Rory Delap (memo to younger readers: that’s Chelsea striker Liam’s dad).
Even in Spain, Marca ran a piece about long throws, recalling how Benito Floro, once coach of Real Madrid, gave a conference in the 1990s entitled “The importance of throw-ins in attacking football”.
As it is, Spanish clubs have struggled this term against English opponents’ dead balls, with Liverpool beating both Madrid clubs thanks to headed goals from Dominik Szoboszlai’s superb deliveries. Atleti also suffered against Arsenal and Barcelona against Chelsea, leading Roberto MartĂnez to declare that “in the Premier League they work the dead-ball situations better than any league in Europe”. Yet overall, the percentage of goals scored from set plays, excluding penalties, in the first four matchdays of the Champions League was 16.3%, not much more than the 15.7% recorded across the whole of last season.
To go back to Davide Ancelotti and Real Madrid, they offered an illuminating example last term of what is – and has always been – the most vital ingredient of all. This is a club who would not have won either of their Champions League finals against Atleti in the 2010s without Sergio Ramos’ goals from set pieces, while the opening goal of 2024 final triumph was a Dani Carvajal header from a corner. The takers? Luka Modrić for the first, Toni Kroos for the second and third. Last season, with Kroos gone and Modrić no longer a fixed starter, they slipped from joint-first for goals from corners to scoring just one from 93.
As my coaching friend put it in the conversation which sparked this column: “The delivery is the key.” Â
Picture the scene. It is Matchday 1 of the Champions League at the Parc des Princes. The players of Paris-Saint Germain and Atalanta have just returned for the second half. In the centre circle stands a lone man in navy blue, JoĂŁo Neves, waiting to restart the match. He takes five steps back. Then he moves forward and, like a rugby player, sends the ball soaring on a diagonal trajectory towards the touchline. It drops just the right side of the corner flag on the left. Right from the resumption, Paris have advanced the ball to the very top end of the pitch.
Over in Bilbao, something similar happens as Arsenal kick off at San Mamés. Declan Rice stands over the ball in the centre circle, his back to the Athletic Club players. On the whistle, he rolls the ball back more than 20 metres to goalkeeper David Raya. Cue a big, angled kick over to the left side of the pitch, in the final third. There, Mikel Merino outjumps his marker and nods the ball on. Immediately, Athletic are under pressure and concede a throw-in.
These two moments came up in a recent conversation with an eminent football coach. He explained how on both occasions the aim was to get into a position to press the opposition as high up the pitch as quickly as possible.
The conversation then flowed on to the enhanced prominence of set plays generally. He agreed that set pieces now receive more attention on the training ground than ever before. To go back to the 1980s, for example, Graham Taylor – a coach famed for his set plays with Watford, Aston Villa and England – would typically work on free-kicks and corners only the day before a game.
Now, in an age when clubs have specialist set-piece coaches, such as Arsenal’s Nicolas Jover, they use video and data analysis to work in increasingly forensic detail on how to gain profit from dead-ball situations – even from kick-offs, as cited above.
According to one experienced club analyst, a team’s schedule will often determine how much they hone their set plays in any given week. Teams playing in the Champions League in midweek, for example, will usually have only one full training session the day before their next domestic fixture to work on tactics and set-play organisation. Yet teams with no midweek fixture might do three or four sessions involving set pieces – perhaps a couple related specifically to their next opponents, and one or two on their own principles.
It was interesting to read about the approach of Davide Ancelotti when he discussed set plays with UEFA’s game insights unit recently. Now coach of Brazil’s Botafogo but until last summer assistant coach at Real Madrid, Ancelotti explained: “I like to do it in almost every training session, but in small doses – it could be ten minutes. I work almost every day in the first part of the session, normally after the warm-up. I like to do it at the beginning of the session, when they are more focused.”
