Sydney FC’s Set-Piece Secrets: Why their floated crosses are so deadly – set-piece analysis

Sydney FC currently occupy fifth position in the A-League, having accumulated 34 points from 22 matches, trailing by four points behind the third-placed Melbourne Victory FC, who have garnered 38 points from 23 matches, indicating an additional match played.

Defensively, the teams statistics are relatively average, having conceded 34 goals, positioning them fifth in terms of best defensive lines in the league, with an average of 1.55 goals conceded per match, knowing that they have managed to keep clean sheets in only two matches.

On the offensive front, we observe a complete contrast as they are deemed the strongest attacking line in the league, having scored 41 goals at an average of 1.86 goals per match. Upon investigating the reasons behind this dominance, it was found that one of the contributing factors is their superiority in set-pieces and corner kicks, in particular. They currently lead the league in terms of goals scored from corner kicks, tallying eight goals, indicating that offensive corners account for approximately 20% of their goals.

Targeting a free player from marking

Ufuk Talays side are very good at using floated crosses, as we have mentioned above, but we will start with the reasons behind preferring this strategy. First, we will mention the general benefits of this strategy, and then, we will illustrate them one by one using examples.

Defending teams that use a hybrid or zonal defending systems usually defend the most valuable areas with many zonal defenders. Hence, the area around the six-yard becomes crowded while the far areas are left unprotected because if the opponent gets the ball there, it wont be a dangerous chance from such a far distance. In contrast, Sydney FC knows that it is difficult to threaten the goal directly, but what about exploiting that to get the first touch in far areas, making it another starting point for the routine of implementing ideas to exploit that?

Using floated crosses is an excellent method to achieve that purpose by increasing the opportunity of getting the first touch because it gives the attacking team many advantages over the defending team. First, it gives the best player of the attacking team at aerial duels the chance to start far away from the targeted area, exploiting that the ball takes a long time on the air, which is also an opportunity for him to show his skills at measuring the ball on the air predicting the landing point while showing his physical skills to push any defender tries to block him exploiting also that he comes from a movement which is a dynamic mismatch over any marker tries to wait for him more inside.

It also gives him an opportunity to escape from the man marker who decides to go out and mark him from the beginning because it is difficult to track him and the ball all that time and distance. The marker faces a problem of orientation, which makes it a good way also against man-marking defending systems. All of that makes it easier to get the first touch.

In the first photo below, the opponent defends with a hybrid system involving six zonal defenders around the six-yard line, two man markers, a short-option defender, and a rebound defender. We see the first way they use this system, which is overloading the area around the penalty spot, making it a 4-v-2 situation against man markers there. This leaves the other two attackers, one with the goalkeeper while the other stands with the last zonal defender.

In the second photo below, the targeted player starts a bit late away from the two man markers, who go with two attackers, targeting a far area, shown by a circle. The fourth attacker, in red, goes to the near post to receive the headed pass, as we will explain below. The other two attackers job is to block the goalkeeper and the last zonal defender because the goalkeeper may decide to go out to claim the ball, and the last zonal defender may go out to the targeted area.

In the third photo, everything is done with the help of the height of the ball, in orange, which forces the defenders to raise their necks to track the ball, allowing the targeted player to escape to the targeted area, exploiting the time that the ball takes on the air. In the fourth photo, the attacker who blocked the goalkeeper leaves him when the ball gets nearer to join his red mate, waiting for the headed pass going a bit back, away from offside.

The other thing which helps in that situation is the unorganised going up from the defence line, so you see below the first three zonal defenders go up to implement the off-side trap, but they leave a gap between them and the other zonal defenders, as shown below. Here, we should mention that only high-level teams can reorganise themselves with an organised line without leaving gaps or a player covering the offside, so it is a good thing to be exploited when you face a defence like that who rushes to go up without organising. It is also a good job from the attacker on the right who blocks the last zonal defender, and this, maybe luckily, helps them more with their essential plan.

The plan works, and