Purple Cow Tactics: How SpVgg Greuther Fürth’s set-piece strategies are sparking their Bundesliga promotion push – set-piece analysis

At the time of writing, Greuther Fürth occupy second place in 2. Bundesliga with 35 points after 19 matches behind FC St. Pauli on 39 points. Despite that, they are not among the top 10 attacking lines in the league, where they occupy the 11th place as the best attacking line, scoring 30 goals with a difference of 10 goals from the best attack, Fortuna Düsseldorf.

As for the defensive level, Greuther Fürth’s team does better as it occupies the second place as the best defence in the league, conceding 21 goals after FC St. Pauli, the first-place holder, who conceded only 16 goals.

Returning to the offensive level, when we examined the matter well, we found that they also rely heavily on the offensive set pieces, especially the corners, where they are the top scorers from corners in the league with seven goals, where their goals from corners constitute about 23.3% of their total.

In this tactical analysis, we will explain their diverse tactics at attacking corners and how they use many easy methods to make their best players in aerial duels escape from their markers or get a little positional superiority over them to win the aerial duel.

Using stacks

The first idea we will talk about is using stacks to distract man markers, so the first thing we should explain is the meaning of stack. A stack is a group of players who stand vertically, sticking to each other, and that confuses defenders who cant determine the attackers future run directions. In contrast, they cant stick to their attackers that everyone should mark or be in physical contact with them, which gives the attacker a little dynamic superiority over the defenders.

Going to an example to make the issue clear, the opponent defends with a man marking defending system with only two zonal players, two short-option defenders due to Greuther Fürths two takers and a rebound defender. In comparison, Greuther Fürth put a player on the near post to drag the two zonal players, a player on the far post, and four players in a stack, while the last one targeted the black area shown in the first photo.

In the second photo, the first and the second players in the stack start to move to the left direction as the taker moves, dragging the first two defenders, then the third attacker moves to the right, dragging the third defender, and after that, the fourth attacker moves to the left. These movements divide the defenders equally in the two directions. Still, the three attackers move to the left, achieving numerical superiority there. In contrast, only one attacker moves to the right against two defenders, so you can simply see the fourth defender in the third photo, in yellow, out of the game.

The fourth attacker finds his way easily to the left, targeting the black area with the help of the attacker, who stands initially with the two zonal players to drag their attention, preventing them from coming back, as shown in the third and fourth photos.

The plan works, as shown below, and the result is a goal.

Flat pa

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