DC United Tactics 2023: Revealing Wayne Rooney’s Successful Attacking Corner Schemes – Set-Piece Analysis

Lets start with packs and their primary purpose.

Teams usually use packs to make their attacking players close together, which helps in blocking and screens to free the targeted player from his man marker.

In the first photo, we can see the opponents defending system, which is man-marking with only two zonal players in green, the target area in black and a pack of five players near the edge of the box.

We will follow these five players and how each one acts in the upcoming photos.

In the second photo, the green-highlighted player moves, with his man, to the near post to take their attention, making them leave the target area behind them; the yellow-highlighted player moves to the rebound zone, dragging his marker out of the box.

The third photo shows a 3v3 situation now, and our targeted man is in green with his marker.

In the fourth photo, he, in yellow, runs in a curved path around his teammates, in green, and then the only way for his marker to follow him is the curved yellow path.

We also note the red player moving away from the targeted area to attract the attention of his marker and the goalkeeper.

The plan worked, but the cross is a little short, so the green zonal player, who also reads the situation and doesnt move away from his area despite the moves in front of him, gets the ball.

We move to the