Why set pieces are the secret to success and how

Sep 26, 2024, 06:00 AM ET

There was a time when set pieces were seen as the refuge of the damned: a shortcut to competitiveness for inferior teams seeking a goal threat to supplement their defensive gameplan. Elite sides considered them an afterthought, an addendum to their footballing philosophy.

Now, the combination of a never-ending search for marginal gains and the rapid expansion of backroom staff has created a trend of appointing specialists adept at finding an edge from dead-ball situations … unless you’re Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou.

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Postecoglou has never appointed a set-piece specialist in his career and while he insists the club work on them regularly, the 59-year-old said earlier this month that he would accept criticism of their record in pursuit of a grander plan.

“It’s my burden to carry and I’m happy to do that,” he admitted, after the concession of a goal from a corner cost his team the North London derby against Arsenal. “Like I’ve always said, for me there’s a bigger picture that’s at play here that’s much more important than the finer details of us getting to where we want to. For us, the way forward is to, as I said, try and turn the football we’re playing now into something meaningful.”

But is he right? Are set pieces still merely a supplementary part of the game, or have specialists taken the forensic analysis to a level that makes them a fundamental part of a team’s success? ESPN examines the latest thinking across Europe.

What do the top clubs in Europe do?

Premier League

Spurs are undoubtedly an outlier in England. The original specialist set-piece coach, Gianni Vio, left the club in the summer of 2023 (he’s now at Championship club Watford) and Nick Montgomery joined Postecoglou’s coaching staff. Although he was appointed as one of the Australian’s assistant coaches rather than a specific specialist, he has taken the lead on set-piece work.

Their Premier League rivals have taken a different approach. Nicolas Jover, who left Manchester City to join Arsenal in 2021, is probably the most celebrated specialist in England given the Gunners have scored 24 goals from set pieces (excluding penalties) since the start of last season in the Premier League — the most of any side — and 18 have come from corners. They’ve also managed 43 set-piece goals since Jovar’s appointment.

Nicolas Jover, left, has improved Arsenal’s set pieces with the help from defender Gabriel, right. Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

City now entrust the responsibility to Carlos Vicens, who earned public praise from manager Pep Guardiola in January.

“Today in modern football, set pieces are really important,” he said. “I’m not involved with anything in set pieces because I’m not good … or the other ones are better. I don’t have time I would say, and we are preparing things in the corners like every team does. Someone had to come with the idea[s], and we are going to do this so all credit to Carlos and Jack [Wilson, who left his role as an analyst at City this summer to become Wolves‘ first dedicated set-piece coach].”

In May, Chelsea paid £750,000 in compensation to Brentford to sign Bernardo Cueva as their set-piece coach. Manchester United lost Eric Ramsay to MLS side Minnesota United FC, where he became their head coach earlier this year. But Andreas Georgson — previously in supporting roles at Southampton, Arsenal and Brentford in addition to serving as a head coach and sporting director in Scandinavia — joined United boss Erik ten Hag’s backroom setup, not as a specialist but with dead-ball situations as his primary focus.

Meanwhile, Liverpool have publicly advertised the role following Peter Krawietz’s exit alongside outgoing manager Jurgen Klopp. The job specification asked for someone with a UEFA A License or equivalent who is a “tactical specialist,” and the role involves “thorough analysis, meticulous planning and the ability to expertly coach both offensive and defensive set-piece strategies.” The successful applicant also has to “provide key metrics to the sporting director for use in board and strategy meetings.”

The position has still not been officially filled but Aaron Briggs joined Arne Slot’s staff after spells with VfL Wolfsburg and AS Monaco following nine years at Manchester City.

Like Jover, Aston Villa‘s Austin MacPhee is a prominent presence on the touchline during matches and has been credited with playing a key role in the club’s resurgence under manager Unai Emery. — James Olley

LaLiga

Davide Ancelotti, who is Carlo Ancelotti’s son and assistant, is credited with Real Madrid‘s success from set plays, and also won plaudits for his dead-ball work when at Everton. He is not a specific set-piece coach but it is one of the areas he dedicates a lot of time to, along with Francesco Mauri, another of Ancelotti’s assistant coaches. Their work led to 15 goals from corners last season across 55 games in all competitions.

Atlético Madrid operate a similar strategy. Diego Simeone’s side have historically been very good defending and attacking set pieces but they don’t have a specialist coach. However, while Atléti don’t detail the exact roles of Simeone’s staff, a source has told ESPN that there is one coach whose work is around “90% focused on set pieces” with the help of his colleagues.

Barcelona also divvy up the work under new coach Hansi Flick. Depending on whether the set piece is in the defending or the attacking phase, several members of Flick’s staff could have input, including Marcus Sorg, Toni Tapalovic and José Ramon de la Fuente. But the Catalan club don’t have a set-piece specialist per se. — Sam Marsden

Serie A

Vio is Italian and since he blazed a trail in the industry the notion of having a specific set-piece coach has come and gone in Serie A. Most coaches delegate the task to one of their assistants (or sometimes two: one for attacking, one for defensive) and they will usually work in tandem with the club’s video analysis teams.

At Juventus, for example, Thiago Motta’s assistant, Alexandre Hugeux, will generally design the movement on set pieces along with match analyst Alessandro Colasante. But the pair also have other responsibilities, such as developing defensive and attacking patterns of play.

Internazionale have match analyst Ferruccio Cerasaro working with members of Simone Inzaghi’s staff. He provides insight on all dead-ball situations, not just free kicks and corners, both attacking and defending, but also tactical support on general patterns of play and defensive movement in open play.

It should also be noted that most coaches in Italy bring their own staff with them to a new job, and part of the resistance towards having external specialists is that they feel it’s something their own assistants and coaches can develop. — Gab Marcotti

Bundesliga

Set pieces are considered important by Germany’s top clubs, but there isn’t a sense that it’s some sort of separate skill for which you need an outside specialist. Not least because there are only so many movements you can make on a set piece and the challenge is finding the best way to defend and exploit them, matching up the characteristics of your players with those of the opposition.

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For that reason, most top Bundesliga clubs do not employ a specific set-piece coach, but rather hand the responsibility to a member of the coaching staff who has other functions as well. They will work closely with the video and match analysts to find any viable edge in possession and identify threats and countermeasures out of possession.

It’s not that set pieces aren’t valued in Germany. On the contrary. Germany’s set-piece specialist when they won the World Cup in 2014 was famously Hansi Flick, who was also head coach Jogi Loew’s assistant. And he’s now manager of Barcelona. — Marcotti

Ligue 1

Considering that the best set-piece coach in the world, Jover, is French, it is strange to note that Ligue 1 is not full of his apprentices. Indeed, while Ligue 1 has some specialists, they are quite rare.

Damien Della Santa is the most established. After working at Nice under Christophe Galtier, he is now at Lyon where he also analyses the players’ individual performances. With Lyon, he follows the methods of Jover, who is his biggest inspiration, and aims to spend 15 minutes at training every day working on his combinations with the players. But he doesn’t always feel he has the backing of the technical staff.

Paris Saint-Germain boss Luis Enrique decided not to bring in a specialist and the club hardly worked on attacking and defending set pieces, despite conceding many goals that way! And while Arthur Leblanc’s main job is to be Nice’s assistant fitness coach, his secondary job is set pieces.

Other Ligue 1 clubs, like Marseille, Angers or Monaco use one of their assistant coaches to work on set pieces. Their expertise is nowhere near as advanced or detailed as Jover’s though — Julien Laurens

How important are set pieces in Europe now?

Five years ago, I talked to Ted Knutson about the state of set pieces in Europe. He helped implement the set-piece programs at FC Midtjylland and Brentford before launching the consultancy and data company Statsbomb that taught a set-piece course which many of the world’s biggest clubs attended.

At the time, Knutson felt that teams, on average, could score upwards of an extra 19 set-piece goals per season, or about 0.5 per game — all by spending a bit more training time on set-piece design. It sounds wild theorizing, but it wasn’t; he literally saw it happen in Denmark.

Today, Knutson has started another company, Variance Incorporated, that publishes a daily newsletter called “The Transfer Flow” and that once again tries to help teams make better decisions. No one knows the set-piece landscape better than he does — still. So have things improved at all since 2019?

“Set-piece coaching is the same as any coaching,” he says. “You have some coaches that are great and have complete buy-in from their organizations — Jover at Arsenal, for example. You have some that are good, but not a ton of buy-in. Some that are fine, but at least they are listened to.”

From set pieces in Europe

At the very least, there are way more set-piece coaches on professional club payrolls than there were five years ago. Except, that has — almost accidentally — made it harder for any team to be dominant in that area. So are teams getting better?

“Some,” Knutson says. “But since it’s a topic of actual discussion these days, you are also less likely to face teams that defend badly, or spend zero time on corner preparation like you would have a decade ago.”

The new environment has caused Knutson to downgrade his estimates a bit.

“My guess on how much value is left on the table is 5-10 goals right now for the average team,” he says. “At least five of that comes from zero work on throw-ins, which are the most frequent restarts and still pick up almost zero training time. Then you get better and better corner and free-kick design, but it has to be design that exploits the weaknesses of the opposition.”

As with so many things in the soccer world, the specifics of your theories are less important than your ability to actually implement your ideas. “This is a full-time job throughout the year,” he adds. “It has to work hand-in-hand with the head coach to get training time on the pitch.” — Ryan O’Hanlon

Who are the experts?

Gianni Vio was one of the first specialist coaches for set pieces and is now working for the USMNT. John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF

While the concept of a dedicated set-piece coach is a relatively new addition in the modern game, the high-profile crop tend to come from a wide variety of backgrounds. But as the role has gained momentum, the demand for specialists has outgrown supply and any budding coach wanting to enter the professional game would be wise to focus on set pieces.

The key to success is obviously variation. From a vast number of options, a successful formula may work only a handful of times and the opposition will consistently study the positioning in and around either box to the minutest of details to analyse the delivery on attacking set pieces. The element of surprise is vital and gauging the frequency of the premediated models — and reworking them — is a science of its own.

So who are the best in the business currently?

Gianni Vio, Watford/USMNT

Arguably the first “modern day” appointment of a fully fledged set-piece coach was Brentford’s hire of Vio in 2015 — though he had previously worked as a technical coach and went on to occupy similar roles at Leeds United and, ironically, Spurs under Antonio Conte. The Italian — who is more hands-on than some of his colleagues by working on ball-striking techniques for ideal delivery, in addition to analysing and designing the actual movement and positioning — now works in a dual role at Watford and the USMNT. With United States he has joined forces with Maurico Pochettino, who has previously proved rather reluctant to use a dedicated set-piece coach.

Nicolas Jover, Arsenal

The 42-year-old is deservedly attracting praise for his work at Arsenal. Having been acquainted with the German’s work at Manchester City, Mikel Arteta brought him to London in 2021 with remarkable results. Rather than being a technical instructor, Jover’s skills can be found in his ability to scheme successful patterns in the action areas (defensive or attacking box) — the most topical being the variation that sees the encircling of the opposing goalkeeper and centre-back Gabriel arriving at the back post. That was the ploy that led to two recent goals against Manchester City and Tottenham.

Bernardo Cueva, Chelsea

Disappointed with their relatively meagre windfall from corners and indirect free-kicks last season, Chelsea boosted their set-piece expertise over the summer by bringing in Cueva as “Match Analyst,” but devoted to set pieces. The Mexican built a strong reputation with Brentford and the Norway national team and has a tough job on his hands with the constant change at Stamford Bridge.

Mads Buttgereit, Germany

Brentford are always at the forefront of footballing innovation and they played a role in the development of Germany’s highest-regarded expert of the trade, despite the fact he’s never worked for the West London club. Buttgereit made his first inroads in the men’s game at Brentford’s Danish affiliate, FC Midtjylland. The sought-after Dane was then approached by the German FA in 2021 and currently plies his trade for their men’s senior national team.

Ferruccio Cerasaro, Inter Milan

In Italy, Inter boss Simone Inzaghi has often credited his loyal assistant with Inter’s fine productivity from set pieces. The partnership goes back to their Lazio days and Cerasaro’s relentless study of the technical and tactical aspects of set pieces have brought Inter an added dimension. — Tor-Kristian Karlsen

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