Zamalek 2022/23: Their creative corner routines with Juan Carlos Osorio – set-piece analysis

Juan Carlos Osorio became the new head coach of Zamaleks football team on 14th April 2023, when the title holders were in fourth place in the Egyptian Premier League. Since then, the former coach of the Mexican national team has been trying hard to improve the performance of Zamalek Club on all levels. Although he suffered a little initially, the teams performance has recently improved, winning six consecutive matches.

One aspect that Osorio worked on improving is set pieces. The team became more effective from set pieces, especially in the attacking corner kicks. Zamalek had only scored two goals from corner kicks during the previous 25 rounds before Osorio took over as Zamaleks coach. Since then, they have scored three goals in nine matches in the Egyptian Premier League, which is a significant improvement, especially after Mahmoud El-Wensh was injured and Hossam Abdelmaguid joined Egypt national under-23 football team for U-23 Africa Cup of Nations, as they are the best in the team aerially.

This tactical analysis shows the most important tactics of Zamalek in attacking corner kicks and how set-piece analysis contributed to the improvement of Zamaleks results in the recent period.

Short corners

Most Egyptian Premier League teams prefer the man-marking defending system at corner kicks, which encouraged Osorio to exploit short corners, especially in the absence of El-Wensh. This led to a decrease in the number of outstanding players in aerial duels who can overcome their markers in aerial duels. Based on what was mentioned earlier, Osorio has opted for several different tactical approaches, including the short corner, which has several benefits that we will explain in detail.

The result of this lack of organisation is that two players become free on the far post but can not reach the ball, as shown below. Another observation in the previous situation is that one of the advantages of the short corner is the difficulty of the defender seeing his marker and the path of the ball at the same time, especially when focusing on adjusting the line with his teammates. This is called an orientation problem, especially when the attacker is on the far post on the blind side of the defender, which helps in the attackers isolation from aerial conflicts.

Another case is shown below, where a 3v1 situation tries to attract more defenders outside the box, which is another use of short corners, where the targeted area is in black, as shown in the first photo. In the second photo, the different trick here is that the targeted player, in green, stands at the back at first, then moves forward without marking.

In the third photo, when Zamaleks player receives the short pass, The opponent