Ternana’s innovative application of set-piece strategies – set-piece analysis

Ternana currently sit in 10th place in Serie B, with the club being rumoured to be bought by Premier League minnows Fulhams owner Shahid Khan. Seemingly an average side, statistically they dont stand out and could just as easily be in a promotion battle as a relegation battle come the end of the season.

Ex-Napoli player Cristiano Lucarelli started the season in charge, but after a poor spell lost his job, only to be given the hot seat back 3 months later. In what has been an inconsistent season, Ternana have stood out as a side which is extremely creative from dead-ball situations, having scored 9/30 goals from set-pieces. Although they have scored a large number of goals, they have underperformed especially from corners, with only 4 corner goals, although theyve created a large volume of high-quality chances from these scenarios.

In this??tactical analysis, we will look into the tactics used by Ternana, with an in-depth analysis of how they have been able to use several different routines to create numerous high-quality goal-scoring chances from both corners and free-kicks. This set-piece analysis will look at the reasons behind the different routines used and why they have been so effective, especially from free kicks.

Corner methods

Ternana have utilised many different methods, depending on the defensive setups they have come up against. Against zonal defensive blocks, space inside the six-yard box is extremely limited. In these cases, Ternana use a cluster of five players inside the six-yard box to act as a large screen, preventing any defenders or the goalkeeper from clearing the ball from inside the zone marked below. The cluster allows for the ball to be delivered into the six-yard box, where it can be attacked from a dangerous area without allowing the defensive team to attack the ball, although it has to clear the near zonal marker.

When inside the cluster, it also becomes extremely difficult to man-mark attackers as every attacker is tight, making it hard for defenders to track the individual movements. As a result, if an attacker can float away from the cluster into an open area without being tracked. Pictured below, we can see the attacker peeling towards the back half of the goal after initially starting around the front post.

The black line also displays the area which is blocked off by the Ternana players. As a result, as long as the ball is delivered further than five yards away from goal, the defenders will be unable to clear it, and the ball can reach the back half of the six-yard box where the runner identified can attack the ball, using the momentum of his movement to out jump any static zonal markers on the back half of the six-yard box.