Cardiff City 2023/24: Why the Bluebirds are soaring as the EFL Championship’s most dangerous team from corners – set-piece analysis

Cardiff City occupy 12th place in the EFL Championship after 22 matches, scoring 28 goals and conceding 27 goals, but showing great excellence in set-pieces, especially the attacking corner kicks.

Cardiff City, at the time of writing, are the top goalscorers from corner kicks in the EFL Championship with 10 goals, far ahead of its rivals, where six teams come in second place with half of this number, only five goals, namely Swansea City, Bristol City, Coventry City, Stoke City, Leicester City, Leeds United and Norwich City.

Not only is it amazing that some of these teams are far ahead of Cardiff City in the standings, but their reliance on corners is even more amazing. Corners represent nearly 36% of Cardiff Citys goals, where they scored 10 from corners out of a total of 28 goals. In contrast, at the top of the table, Leicester Citys percentage is around 12%, where they scored only five goals from corners out of a total of 41 goals. This indicates Cardiff Citys reliance on corners for scoring.

In this tactical analysis, we will discuss the reasons for Cardiff Citys superiority in attacking corners and their different tactics to highlight their players abilities in aerial duels for scoring, especially using stacks. We will also explain their use of short corners to surprise the opponent and achieve the principle of variation.

Excellent use of stacks

Using stacks is a characteristic sign for them, so you often see two players, at least, standing behind each other in their corner routines, which gives them many advantages against man markers, as we will explain in detail.

The first advantage we will discuss is that the attackers standing vertically close to each other makes it very difficult for the defenders to predict which direction each one will go, especially when the first one in the stack moves in a direction that attracts the attention of the defenders. Then, the attackers behind him go in another direction while he tries to block the defenders from reaching the other side towards his teammates, as in the case below.

In the first photo below, the targeted player is the third man in the stack, so lets follow the process to free him. In the second photo, you see that the first player moves, at first, to the right side, trying to drag the defenders attention and then blocking anyone trying to go back. After that, the second and the third players of the stack move to the left side against only one defender, but the second moves first to drag this defender away to free the targeted player who will attack the area between the two zonal players coming from a good distance to run, then jump with a dynamic mismatch, as in the third and fourth photos.

The result is a goal, as shown below.

In this case below, you can see a stack of f