Analysis of Napoli’s unsung hero en route to winning the Scudetto – set-piece analysis

Napoli have so far this season blown teams away with ease in both the Serie A and the UEFA Champions League, where they sit at the top of both coming into the new year. While the praise of their excellent open-play football is rightly justified, it can be easy to forget just how important set pieces have been for them this season. In the 21 games played out in this campaign, Napoli have needed to score goals from corners on four occasions to put them into the lead, whilst also scoring another three equalisers from corners. A goal to put you in the lead can be valued at 2 points, whilst an equaliser at 1, so Napoli have gained 11 points through set-pieces in both the Serie A and Champions League together.

Gli Azzurri have scored 11 goals from corners this season, and the stats from their league campaign have been more impressive than anyone elses in the league. From 88 corners this season, they have managed 6.29 xG, and attempted a shot from 55% of those corners. They have created more xG than anyone else in the league, while only Juventus have managed to get a higher percentage of shots off from their corners, meaning that Napolis corners are the second most accurate in the league. Only Inter Milan have managed a better xG per shot attempted from corners than Napoli as well.

In this tactical analysis, we will delve into the tactics Luciano Spalletti has used to make Napoli so dangerous from corners. The set-piece analysis will show the different ways that Napoli have been able to make the first contact with so many corners. Furthermore, the analysis will look into the movement and routines used, and why this may be the difference between them winning the Scudetto or not.

Sneaking in at the near post

In this first corner routine, Napoli attempt to make the first contact at the front of the six-yard box, to redirect the ball across the goal, rather than scoring from the first contact. Deliveries into this target area are more likely to be won by the attacking team, as the defensive team will usually throw most of their players in between the two posts where contact is much more likely to result in a goal. Napoli make smart movements to exploit the open area in front of the six-yard box.

Hellas Verona set up in a man-marking system defensively, with three zonal defenders. Each of the three players are between the front post and the front edge of the six-yard box, precisely the area which Napoli want to target.

In instances where the target area is harder to access, Napoli utilise decoy runs to create space. As shown in the image below, Rrahmani (starts at the front post), makes a move towards the zonal defenders, in their blindside, as the corner taker begins his run-up. This movement attracts the attention of the central of the three zonal markers (#22). That zonal marker now has two problems to deal with: 1) an unmarked attacker six yards from goal behind him, and 2) there is an open area in front of him, which he needs to be able to get across to.

As the decoy run is made, the defender can be seen turning his head, giving himself an updated image of what is going on around him. While the defender is no longer looking at the ball, Di Lorenzo attacks the open space on the front edge of the six-yard box. Attacking the open space while his defender is distracted gives him that yard of space he needs to comfortably get to the cross first. The timing of the decoy run needs to be perfect so that by the time the defender looks at the ball again, it is already in motion and impossible to reach.

The above images showed the first phase of these kinds of corners. In underhit crosses, there are two phases. The first of which is to make the first contact inside the eighteen-yard box. In this phase, the angle to the goal makes it extremely difficult to score a header, but that is not the aim. The first phase of an underhit cross is simply designed to lure defenders in, while attackers can make premeditated movements to the actual target area.

There are three main benefits to creating chances in this method. The first is that a redirected header from six yards becomes extremely difficult to defend against. Imagine a cross being played in from the by-line in the same position as the header is played from in the image below. Defenders have no clue whether the cross will go to the back post or the front post, and they dont know if it will be played hard and low, or perhaps be lofted across the goal. The unpredictability, along with the proximity of such a delivery providing no reaction time makes the defenders powerless in these scenarios. They have no time to move positions, and hardly any time to react to deal with the ball being played across. A defender can try to predict where the ball will go, but a wrong move can create an unopposed path to goal for the attacker.

Bringing it back to the flick-on from