Shanghai Port’s Corner Mastery 2024: Oscar’s Set-Piece Magic Explained

Shanghai Port occupy first place in the Chinese Super League after 25 rounds, having accumulated 66 points; this places them just two points ahead of their fierce competition, Shanghai Shenhua.

Defensively, Shanghai Port are not the leagues standouts.

They have conceded 23 goals, giving them the second-best defence with a significant gap compared to Shanghai Shenhua, who have conceded only 15 goals, a difference of eight goals.

In contrast, Shanghai Port boast the strongest attack in the league, with a substantial lead over their competitor, Shanghai Shenhua.

Shanghai Port have scored 83 goals, 19 more than Shanghai Shenhua — this highlights the formidable strength of Shanghai Ports offensive capabilities.

One of the key factors behind their exceptional attacking strength is their proficiency in set-pieces, particularly corners.

They are the highest scorers in the league from corner kicks, with 15 goals, significantly ahead of Henan, who are in second place with nine, followed by Shanghai Shenhua with eight.

Explore Shanghai Ports 2024 set-piece tactics in this in-depth tactical analysis in which we will show how Shanghai Port leverage corners to create scoring opportunities.

Our analysis provides an analysis of set-piece specialist Oscars pivotal role and the strategic innovations driving Shanghai Ports corner success in the Chinese Super League.

Oscar, the former Chelsea player, is the top assist-provider in the league with 17 — eight of them from set-pieces, with a seven-assist difference above the second one, Matías Vargas, who is the secondary taker of Shanghai Port, which shows their brilliance in set-pieces.

The Area Ahead Of The Near Post

The first thing we should start with is their permanent desire to win the first touch, surprisingly in the area ahead of the near post, exploiting the light but excellent cross by Oscar from the left or the right while also having Matías Vargas as a taker from the right.

In the photo below, it is clear that the opponent defends with two zonal defenders (yellow) while the rest are man markers.

The first thing they do is to try to drag the first zonal defender out of his position to vacate the targeted area by asking the short-option attacker to get closer to the taker.

Trying to convince the opponent that he will receive a short pass, this motivates the first zonal defender to go forward to help prevent a probable 2-v-1 superiority over the short-option defender.

After that, the targeted player, in pink, goes to the targeted area with the help of his teammate (blue), who blocks his marker and frees him up, a technique known as a screen.

As shown below, the plan works so the targeted man comes freely from the blind side of the only zonal defender left who cant defend this huge area alone.

The plan ends with a goal.