Marginal gains within any sport are vital for success and one of the most recent trends in football has been the increased emphasis placed on throw-ins. Once, if a team was said to emphasise throw ins you would expect long-throw routines into the box, but more and more in modern football you are seeing teams train, and then use throw-ins as a vital tool to regain and maintain possession. If a team can structure themselves correctly defensively from a throw, they can potentially regain possession and prevent a potentially dangerous attack, while on the flip side if you maintain possession correctly you can build a dangerous attack, or create a dangerous situation directly from a throw.
Set-pieces are usually trained in terms of routines, and throw-in routines are still used by teams, but not as prevalently as corners and free kicks. This is due to the sheer number of throw-ins and the therefore different variables such as pitch location and number of players that are possible, and so like anything in football, players need to be trained in the principles of a throw-in situation in order to be effective. This tactical analysis will outline four practices that can be done to coach these principles, and analyse some top teams offensive movement from throws.
Coaching points
All of the below practices should include each of these principles and coaching points, with some points more emphasised throughout the analysis than others depending on the session. Below is a list of these broad coaching points that can come about through the practices.
-Decoy runs
-Rotations
-Double movements
-Vacation and occupation of space
-Third man runs
-Arriving into space
Here we can see some examples of these points being put into practice.
In this example here, Wolves create a 5 v 4 around the ball. Jordan Henderson makes a decoy run in order to draw his marker out from a passing lane. Mohamed Salah also provides height which pins Wolves’ backline deeper.
Roberto Firmino moves from deep and behind a potential marker, obviously meaning he cannot be seen by this player, and then arrives into the space created by Henderson. Firmino arrives and receives the ball immediately, which doesn’t give the opposition an opportunity to react and also offers better body orientation. Liverpool then go on to score thanks to the combination play of Salah and Firmino.
