FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023: Why stellar set-plays are not to blame for hosts New Zealand’s early exit – set-piece analysis

New Zealands journey in the FIFA Womens World Cup 2023 has ended after a spirited yet scoreless draw with Switzerland in Dunedin on Sunday. Despite New Zealands exit from the group stage in FIFA Womens World Cup 2023, there is light at the end of the tunnel, which is their excellence in set pieces, but unfortunately, their final touches were inaccurate.

New Zealand becomes the first host nation to be knocked out of the Womens World Cup at the group stage, but we will focus on their abilities to exploit set pieces which is an excellent point to start the correction revolution.

Against the Philippines, New Zealand showed their ability to carry out a creative short-corner routine. The clever trick in this routine was that the receiver of the short pass wasnt the short option player or a rebound player, but the receiver was the player who stood at the back pretending that she was waiting for the counterattack if it happened.

As shown in the first photo, the Philippines defend with a player-marking defending system with only two zonal marking players, highlighted in green. The short-option player, highlighted in yellow, moves more inside to drag her marker with her while the two red players stand at the rebound zone to fix Philippines two red players preventing him from chasing the real targeted player who was at the back, out of the shot.

In the second photo, the aim of their using a short-corner routine appears. The Philippines, and most of the player-marking teams, have a problem in reorganising themselves after playing the short corners because they dont have a clear and unified reference to deal with the short corners, so you can see that the players are confused because they dont know if they should still stick to their markers or they should reorganise themselves in a high line. The result is that the three green players are covering the offside trap knowing that the attacker on the far post helps to attract their attention, fixing them behind the line.

In the third photo, the two players, highlighted in yellow, run on the far post to be on the blind side of the line exploiting the late three green players. In the fourth photo, the plan works with the two green players on the far post, but she was very unlucky because the headed shot was a little above the crossbar.

Targeting the near post

Against Switzerland, they also had a different creative routine, but they were also unlucky before the goalkeeper saved the ball at the last second, as we will explain.

In the first photo, Lets start with the defending scheme of Switzerland. They defend by four players, highlighted in green, in the first-zone line, including the near-post player, a player, in yellow, in front of them in the second-zone line, three player-markers, a player for the short option and a player for the counterattack.

In the second photo, they aim to target the area on the