You can often see attractive videos about set-pieces on social media with some annotations, projecting the idea that this is the whole story.
You may miss some context, such as why they implement this specific routine against this specific team and whether they can exploit the same idea against other opponents.
As a coach or analyst, you may admire this routine and try to copy and paste it with your team, thinking that the process looks like a playbook, but it suddenly doesn’t work!
You can design your plan inspired by some ideas and principles, but every opponent is a single case because every team has a unique scheme with different dynamic reactions against different attacking movements, and it also depends on individuals.
Therefore, you should consider opponents and then design a routine that includes the 10 players’ movements and explains why, when, and how to move against each opponent.
Elite teams, like Arsenal, do that smoothly, and all their routines are inspired by similar principles and ideas.
However, if you focus more and more, you will find a small variation depending on the opponent.
Empoli implemented great tactics and ideas revealed on social media as a case study, but they are the only team to have scored zero from corners and set-pieces in general in Serie A.
They also have the lowest xG from set-pieces in Serie A, with 1.37, despite being in the middle of the table, in 10th position.
In this tactical analysis, we will show that despite being unlucky, they can become increasingly effective in corners with small adjustments, and we expect they will.
Repeated Ideas Regardless Of Opponent
We will start with their amazing ideas in short corners like this one against AS Roma who spread a lot among the football community.
In the photo below, Roma defend with a man-marking defending system with only two zonal players (green).
Empoli FC attacked the box with eight players, meaning there is only one player left in the back (yellow) who will be the targeted player, but why did they do that, and where are the rebound defenders?
They want to ensure that no one will defend in the short or rebound areas.
To this end, they ask the blue player to suddenly move from the first zonal defender’s blind side to do a wall pass to the taker near the vertical edge of the box.
Eight man markers mean that no defenders are left to stand on the rebound area, too, so the yellow defender will run into the whole group’s blind side.
Regarding the possible rebound, they ask two players (pink) to run back to the edge of the box once the routine begins.
The other runners run towards the near post (decoy runs) behind the only zonal player left because the first one goes to defend the two-versus-two possible situation, but the taker crosses the ball directly.
The targeted player exploits the defending team’s orientation problem, as they can’t track the ball and this player in their back at the same time.
They also ask the last runner (orange) to block his marker, preventing him from stepping back after realising the idea, as shown below.
The plan works excellently but is missed strangely, as shown below.
You may say all is good, but what is the problem?
They implemented a plan like this against a different opponent.
Let’s see what happened.
In the photo below, Lazio defend with five zonal defenders covering the goalmouth well (green), a short-option defender (yellow), a defender on the edge of the box (blue) and three man-markers (pink).
One of them acts as a waiting blocker because he may go to defend the edge of the box in case the blue player goes to the short area.
The plan is to ask the short attacker (yellow) to run inside suddenly to open the direct pass lane to the blue player.
As shown below, the player who receives the ball passes it again to the taker, who is ready for an in-swinging cross.
However, we want to focus on the difficult challenges in the box.
Now, there is a five-member organized line and two man-markers (orange) against five runners, which makes three runners free (blue arrows).
One does a decoy run to the near post, the second goes to take the attention of the last zonal players, and the last one goes to the area behind the zonal line.
Although the two man markers suffer from orientation problems because the attackers move in the opposite direction of the ball, the challenge is too difficult against this five-membered zonal line, as shown below.
The zonal line can easily deal with that cross, as shown.
Although the cross is a bit under-hit, the area behind the last zonal defender is after the goalmouth, which makes the process difficult.
Moreover, they tried to implement the same idea after that in the same match with no variation to influence the opponent.
Because we don’t play against statues, the rebound defender (blue) reacts quickly, this time going to the first targeted player after realising the idea.
The plan fails.
Going to another good idea they implemented, they target the area on the near post a bit after the six-yard box with an out-swinging cross.
In the photo below, Juventus defend with four zonal defenders, three man markers, a short-option defender (yellow) and two rebound defenders.
One of them is dragged by a movement to the short area (pink).
They have six players in the box against three man markers which means there are three free runners.
One fakes a run to the near post (blue arrow) to drag the second zonal player.
Another blocks the third zonal defender to free the targeted area from the yellow player, who is coming from a distance with enough momentum before jumping.
The pink player gets back to defend the rebound after doing his role.
The plan works, so the targeted player gets the ball while the orange player goes to frame the goalmouth on the far post.
He starts to move late from the blind side of his marker, who is facing an orientation problem watching the ball.
As in the previous idea, they try to implement a similar idea against a different defending team.
In the photo below, the opponent defends with seven zonal defenders while the first one (green) is dragged outside to help in this probable short corner because of the attacker’s movement (pink).
After that, they defend with two players in the second line who act as blockers for runners to slow them down before reaching the zonal defenders.
Empoli aim for the yellow player, who moves behind the second line to reach the same targeted area.
As shown below, zonal defender #30 is a problem, so two orange movements happen to drag him forward and also drag the first defender into the second line, making the other one in a 3v1 situation, which makes it easy for the targeted player to escape.
As shown below, all of the previous steps were done as in the previous case, but it is still a very crowded area in this case.
Zonal defender #26 isn’t blocked, either, so he gets the ball easily.
Incomplete Routines
The second issue they have is neglecting the final important detail in the routine, and this is what distinguishes the elite teams.
In the photo below, they want to target the same area with a low pass to be shot by the foot, so they are trying to find an easy, flat passing lane to do that.
First, they use a short option to drag the first zonal defender out to evacuate the targeted area.
Then, he starts to return, opening this passing lane.
The targeted player stands far and runs in a curved run using his pink mate, who acts as a screen for him (blocking his marker, preventing him from following).
As shown below, the scene is complete, and the first zonal defender comes back; they should have played it quickly on his way to return.
However, they ask player 1 to block the second zonal defender and player 2 to fake a run behind the first zonal defender to take his attention.
As shown below, the zonal defender isn’t affected and cuts the ball.
Player 2 should have run in front of him, not on his blind side because he didn’t affect his vision toward the ball, which would have allowed him to clear the ball easily.
Preventing the first zonal defender from clearing the ball is crucial in this routine, so they should have made sure that he wouldn’t go, and it might happen by a block, too.
As another example of incomplete routines, they try to target the area inside the six-yard box ahead of the near spot by an in-swinging cross, as shown below.
The opponent defends totally in a zonal way with a short-option defender (blue) and a rebound defender (pink).
They want to target the blue player in that area, so the problem is the first zonal defender (green) who is responsible for getting out to defend this area.
The short-option attacker runs inside to drag the short-option defender away from the low-cross path.
Empoli depend only on a player who stands behind him to fix him.
This player moves back as the taker moves to fix more than the zonal defender, but he doesn’t care and goes to defend this area easily, as shown below.
We bring a simple example from Shanghai Port as an example of what they can do.
In the photo below, the attacker in yellow blocks the first zonal defender coming from his blind side to free the targeted area.
At the same time, the player in pink targets the same area with a low-level cross, which means that if he starts to run suddenly with separation, the competition becomes a race to the ball.
The plan worked, and it was a dangerous chance close to the post featuring a slight touch, as shown below.
Conclusion
From this analysis, we expect more and more from Empoli because they have amazing ideas that could be more effective, and we predict that they can be more effective over time.
In this set-piece analysis, we think they may suffer from being unlucky, but they can double their productivity with small tips.
