How Goal Kicks Are Changing Football

a quiet Revolution is happening in football and at the heart of it is a recent rule change this is how Over The Last 5 Years goal kicks have completely changed the [Music] sport there are an average of 16 goal kicks in a Premier League match making it the third most common set piece behind throwin and free kicks and yet until 2019 goal kicks had largely been taken without much thought on most occasions teams pushed everyone up and the goalkeeper smashed the ball as far as he could then in summer 2019 ifab changed the rule around

goal kicks meaning that the ball no longer had to exit the penalty area before a player could receive the first pass it was Radical the number of goal kicks being taken short has more than doubled since 201819 in the Premier League but in the past 5 years the law Chang has birth a range of Trends including hastening the rise of man-to-man marking the hollowing out to Central Midfield and the tactic of playing over the opposition press those three themes were highlighted by uefa's technical review of the 2024 European Championship examples included Slovakia luring England into

a full press and almost scoring via direct play up to their Striker and the Netherlands creating an overload in the middle of the pitch against High pressing Austria the impact of the rule change was underestimated by many said arson Banger the former Arsenal manager who is now chief of global development for FIFA World football's governing body in a review of the rule last year it was introduced to make the game faster and more spectacular but even more has changed the main attraction is to attract your opponent as far away from their goal as you can

and try to play through if you can play through the first pressure you have a whole half of the pitch to be dangerous but how does a trend like this start to proliferate in such a quick space of time and how has it become just as normal to see a center back passing the ball to the goalkeeper as the other way around that's something Arsenal regularly do with Defender Gabriel playing to keeper David Rya before the latter punts long towards Kai ht's up front with Mikel aretas Midfield racing forward to support the next phase previously

when teams had to pass out of the box from a goal kick they would often have to play across their box given the opposition a chance to press while also locking themselves into one side of the pitch now with a Defender and goalkeeper able to exchange passes inside the Box possession remains dead Central most teams bring midfielders to the box now and it just makes the space much bigger to defend says an analyst at a major European Club it is so hard to be compact as if you want to get pressure on at the top

end the midfielders are having to match midfielders which naturally opens up space behind them the question you are asking the opposition is are you so Keen to get pressure on us that you're going to leave yourself 3v3 or 4v4 at the back teams realize they have to commit more bodies to force it long which explains the rise of man-to-man pressing one of the most effective teams in the first few seasons after the rule change were Italy's Inter Milan under Antonio Conte Conte prefers rehearsed passages of play and took advantage by constructing moves that ended with

long balls that forwards could run onto Germany's national team have been creative in their use of goal kicks in this example against the Netherlands in March 2024 goalkeeper Manuel Neuer edges forward with the ball while his midfielders move out from the center to drag their markers wide and open up a central passing channel to HTS the ball from Neuer is the trigger for The Supporting Cast to coals around him with ht's layoff springing a 4v4 opportunity the new rule gave coaches a blank canvas to work on and has produced many variations in how to try

to gain an advantage in buildup Southampton manager Russell Martin has been among them in this example from a game against Swansea in the 23 24 season one Center back drops in line with the goalkeeper receives and then Waits on the opposition Striker pressing him before playing a return ball to the keeper who had pushed up 10 yards so he could be used as the spare man just like another Center back while coaching shakar in 2020 21 Roberto derer regularly had his team play out with four players inside their Penalty Box drawing the press in before

finding the spare man after they had lured the opposition players to one side and before succeeding der Zerby at Brighton Fabian herzler attempted various highstakes routines on his way to promotion from the German second division with st POI again using the goalkeeper to advance the ball after a pass from a Defender with the result that long kicks went even nearer to the opposition goal with the team higher up the pitch when contesting second balls all of these teams vary their approach as does new Liverpool head coach Arna slot when his firer team played Short with

the intention of cutting through the Press they did it in a much Bolder way than most here against neck Nyan in the Dutch Top Flight earlier this year fer had goalkeeper Justin bow stands still with the ball and delay his pass until the very last moment and Center back Thomas Bean is trusted to dribble across his own penalty area and wait for the space to present itself there are clear risks associated with these exits which explains why setting the bait with a pass to the goalkeeper and then going long has become the go-to strategy for

most top teams with the initial risk offset with a more percentage play immediately after it may Remain the tip of the iceberg but just a few years after this rule change the Innovation is already turning a simple restart into a weapon if you like this video please consider subscribing to the channel the athletic is home to some of the world's best sports journalists including David orstein Daniel Taylor Ole K Amy Lawrence and James horncastle with the latest transfer news and insight on every Premier League Football story that matters theathletic.com puts you inside football and you

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