Olympique Marseille currently sit 2nd in Ligue 1, 7 points behind league leaders Paris Saint-Germain.
After a stint as Andrea Pirlos assistant at Juventus and head coach at Hellas Verona in Serie A, Igor Tudor has finally been given the backing of a major European club in the top five leagues to attempt to lead them to consecutive UEFA Champions League places.
A major reason for their high position in the league table so far is their use of corner kicks to make a difference in tight games.
The majority of goals from corners have proven decisive by changing the game state, and Marseille has earned 15 points in the league as a result.
These points are the difference between a spot in second place, still competing for the league title, and a spot in mid-table.
From 8.4 xG from corners, Marseille have found the back of the net on 10 occasions, showing a slight overperformance in their heading abilities.
In this tactical analysis, we will examine the football tactics used by Olympique Marseille and in-depth analyze how dead ball specialists can make corners a viable method of chance creation, regardless of the teams size.
This set-piece analysis will look at the reasons behind the different routines used depending on the opposition teams defensive set-up.
Igor Tudor Attacking set-up
During offensive corners, Marseille have often set up in the shape pictured below, with five players attacking the area around the six-yard box, one player attacking the box from deep and the three remaining outfield players surrounding the 18-yard box.
An attacking set-up like this involves every player from the offensive team in the final third, ensuring that the attackers can force the defending team inside their own third.
Any time the ball is cleared, the Marseille players are positioned high up the pitch, spread horizontally to ensure they can always be the first player to get to the loose balls, preventing defending teams from being able to get out of their box.
Being so attacking also forces defending team to defend with all outfield players as leaving an attacker up the pitch will likely mean that they are outnumbered inside their own box.
As a result, being extremely attacking from corners also forces defending teams to leave no one up the pitch, and so being attacking from corners can help reduce the possibility of being counter-attacked indirectly.
