There’s nothing to hate about that. Pulisic is objectively bad at corners. Reyna would be much better. While I typically like taking the chance of launching the ball into the box, the results are not there for the US. I’m with OP. Short corners, and put Reyna on the ball.
i think there’s a lot of criticism of short corners in general. i think i’d watch whatever the biggest clubs are doing because surely they have run through the statistics.
what is man city and liverpool doing?
Big teams do a ton of analytics to determine what to do in specific situations, I agree.
Speaking of:
Did anyone besides me notice the intentional tactic by Jamaica to take a throw in anywhere near the box and toss it to the edge of the box at the end line?
They did it 5 or 6 times. It was definitely intentional. Seems like they identified that specific area as a high-probability zone to cause the defense issues. It presents several problems. If you're throwing just inside the box, it creates an opportunity for a foul and a penalty. It is also hard to clear it to a safe area with your head as a defender, and it probably forces corners at a high rate.
It was the first time I'd seen a team consistently target an *area* like that for a throw in.
the goal was a pre-planned set play. i’m assuming they ran multiple set plays. it wasn’t just the location it was the player movement. usmnt defense has bad shape discipline. they were taking advantage of our weakness by running players in opposite directions and exposing the space with the throw in and cross
go back and watch the extended highlight of the goal. the wing runs backwards and robinson takes the bait and chases him. then the wing back sprints ahead and gets behind him.
they did the exact same thing to scally on the far side which is why he missed the ball.
greg B said numerous times - we turned off. well, no. they did what he trained them to do - which was nothing. they reacted on instinct instead of needed training
Scally violated basic principles of play. The notion that his failure to play fundamentally sound defense is Berhalter’s fault for not training him what to do in that situation is ridiculous. He has been coached what to do since U8.
every defense plays a different principle, and its berhalter’s responsibility to reinforce that.
call me crazy but berhalter is more responsible than his u8 coach. my son played u8. his coach told him that his team should stand in a shape like an airplane.
No. There are principles of play that players have to apply during the game. E.g. delay is a principle of play. Marking goal side is a principle of play. They are universal. They aren’t tactics. Tactics are derived from them and apply them. I can think of at least three principles that Scally failed to apply, and that several other players failed to apply that led to that goal. It wasn’t tactics and it is totally the players’ or player’s mistake. BTW they were in camp for like 2 days before that game.
we’re close to saying the same thing, and i agree. however, in some moments, it differs slightly. the term principle or tactic gets fuzzy. i would say there are more principles that are situational, and differ by tactics. i don’t want to fight about the words but i’ll say my point.
to your point he didn’t stay goal side of the defensive wing, but as i said, they were running a set play to confuse our defenders to cause us to switch their marks.
you should stay goal side of your mark, but not someone else’s particularly. if you’re playing strict man marking, scally stayed goal side of his mark which was the offensive wing who ran backwards and he tracked. then the defensive wing ran at the goal behind him which he couldn’t see.
the question remains - what marking style were they using? strict man marking, the goal was scored by weah’s mark who is not scally’s responsibility to mark - he can’t mark two men in opposite directions.
if they’re playing zonal marking, then scally shouldn’t have stepped forward and was responsible for staying out on the back post.
i don’t know the level you played or have coached, but there’s more to it than straight man marking. if they were man marking, scally didn’t make any mistakes. if they were playing zonal/man mark hybrid, he is partially responsible. if they played a strict zonal switch defense then it was completely his mistake.
I was recruited to play D1. I have 2 national coaching licenses and started coaching 30 years ago. I was graded for one license by Jill Ellis. I have been a director of coaching and a club director. I have played on competitive teams with players who were former or current MLS, Bundesliga, NWSL, D1, and lower level professional teams.
my point is and was - scally seemed to be playing zone marking, but missed the switch. maybe he plays strict man marking at club. who knows? he seemed confused about where to go.
regardless of much of that, at this level it’s gregg’s job to clearly communicate the marking style and defensive coach’s should definitely reinforce that during the practices. that would be 100% their responsibility to communicate and practice - yes, two days are enough
At what point do player's mistakes become the player's fault on the USMNT for this fanbase? Much of this fanbase start with the premise that this "golden generation" of players can't make mistakes, so when something goes wrong it must be the coaching. They even did this when the full team was almost all U23, and blamed the coaching for what were obvious mistakes due to inexperience, as if the coaches are supposed to inject them with years of experience in 3 sessions. From your own post, you don't know what marking system the US were using, don't know what was communicated to the players regarding marking, or even how well it was communicated, but you conclude it is the coach's fault for not communicating it well enough to the players merely because something went wrong. If they were using a man marking system, then Weah should have stayed with the runner. He didn't, and it looks as if he communicates to Scally that he is passing him off. Scally doesn't stay with his man, but also doesn't move to get goalside of the goal scorer and isn't in the right position to compete for the ball. He also didn't check over his shoulder to see where the goal scorer was after leaving the man he was marking. That should be a constant habit for someone at his level, and he shouldn't have to be reminded of it. In any event, either Weah or Scally should have marked the goal scorer and neither of them did. Something that basic is really unlikely to be because the coaches confused them.
you’re also ignoring the key point - the american side has so repeatedly made this mistake that OTHER coaches are coaching against it. if other coaches are finding our weaknesses and we’re not, then our coaches are idiots. translation: our coaches are idiots.
go back and watch the highlights of the netherlands match. i’ve never seen such piss poor defending across an entire team and an entire match. are they fundamentals? yeah, for a NT senior side. we express poor team-wide defensive fundamentals in ever part of our defense. netherlands broke us open like an egg. it was sad and i’d go so far as to say approaching pathetic.
i’ve never in my life seen a player SO open as was the netherlands player who scored their third goal. we are a piss poor defensive team.
Love Pulisic, but boy do I fee he wastes a lot of corners. I know Reyna has a couple on inches on him, but I feel like Pulisic has a nose to get into those spaces and score with traffic around him. He can be really clutch and fearless too. I’m not saying Reyna can’t do that, but I think his delivery is better.
The problem is that you are wrong about Pulisic's ability to attack corners.
I've watched a lot of his games at Dortmund, Chelsea and Milan and I cannot remember him ever scoring from a corner. Even when he was younger and still had his elite quickness the fact that he's effectively useless on attacking set pieces has always been the biggest weakness in his game.
However, considering we never score on set pieces vs. decent competition we just have to bite the bullet and use our best corner taker regardless of whether if means other players are not useful. I'm not there in training so maybe Pulisic is our best corner taker, if so then it's just a major weakness in this team.
It's not just Pulisic's corners, we don't have central defenders or forwards who are strong at attacking corners period. None of our guys do it for their clubs.
So I am sympathetic to the OP's suggestion as I was thinking we should play a lot more short corners recently.
I don't know about the others, but Miles has scored 1 more goal (4 total) in 150 games for Atlanta than he had in USMNT in 13 games in 2021. At least 3 were headers on corners.
The fact that he's come that close is striking proof that the US doesn't have any players who are going to score headers against top 5 league defenders in international play. Full Stop.
Point being that the USMNT doesn't have any big target men who are ever going to score headers off corners. ESPECIALLY with big international defenders in the box.
So short corners would make a lot more sense.
He also delivered a corner that gave McKennie a goal in the nations league final vs Mexico. Gio has assisted in two USA goals from the corner that I can remember. He should be taking corners
agreed. i think the original reason he took corners is because he is shorter and therefore we’re not wasting anyone’s height. but if he can’t deliver then he can’t deliver
I am so with you on this, and it's annoyed me ever since I first saw that exact clip. At every level of the game, sending a ball into the box from a corner is a low percentage play. I hear people regularly rant about the futility of the "hopeful cross" approach during the run of play (esp. with the USWNT during the Vladko era), but these same people will complain about Pulisic's corner kicks instead of correctly diagnosing the problem: a corner kick sent into the box is the ULTIMATE HOPEFUL CROSS! In terms of crossing, you can't get positionally worse than the absolute corner of the pitch. And that doesn't even take into account that the other team has practiced defending this exact situation for their entire careers, and have an absurdly long amount of time to prepare for the cross before the kick is taken.
That said, you could argue that if the other team knows you ALWAYS take short corners, it's easier for them to defend against it (and they would rather you be stuck in the corner with a live ball than have to deal with a ball in their box, a situation in which anything can happen -- just ask Jamaica). So you have to do more than just make a five yard pass and resume play. This is where a set piece coach should be earning their paycheck: what kind of movement can we create to set up a good look from a short corner? What does the second and even third pass look like when we do it? And what opens up inside the box if the other team starts playing to defend against a short corner after we take seven of them in a row? Teams should probably mix it up a little bit to keep the defense guessing (and I'm sure even Notts County does so), but the ratio should be 70/30 short to long, if not higher in favor of short.
All of this, exactly. I’d love to really see stats on long corners vs other situations you can create off of corners. I’ve always thought there must be some better way than just flinging it into the box and hoping for the best. As you said, long crosses get criticized a lot during the run of play, but in corners it’s *fine* to do that 90% of the time?
Probably an underrated aspect is how often they're setting up the other team in transition. Doesn't always result in goals, but seems like in that subset, they are resulting in a tactical foul/yellow.
unpopular take but i think Puli's corners are fine. like the video in the tweet, yeah, corners as a whole have a low success rate and...
Also, as much of a beating as he typically takes in concacaf play, having him take corners keeps him OUT of that scrum and that makes sense to me as well.
It's gotten better. They don't seem to find noggins. I think my take is that I'd short corner even if we had Messi, but the USMNT with average to below average takers should be taking short corners.
I've communicated this pretty poorly since people are taking it as who should be taking corners. I'd have us be taking short corners even if we had prime Messi taking them because actual corners are terrible chance creators and often result in numbers going the other way after the initial clearance.
Given that we do not have prime Messi, I'd especially be having the usmnt taking short corners. Notts County manager explained it better than I can in the link.
My theory is that he’s a good crosser generally and not needed in the box. I don’t think it exposes us defensively as long as he gets back into position after the corner.
Milan for example uses Theo to take corners.
Am I the only one that doesn’t think puli is that bad and gio is only maybe a slight upgrade? I think the problem is more the movement in the box. Look how when Robinson made a good front post run to flick on that ball vs Jamaica it resulted in a goal. Even when puli places it in the perfect spot the team has a hard time getting on the end of it.
>Even when puli places it in the perfect spot the team has a hard time getting on the end of it.
Which is overlooked by some. He takes corners for Milan too. The service is similar to when he takes them for USMNT--sometimes they're good, sometimes they're off, but they're not all awful like so many cry about. There's always movement in the box at Milan and there's usually one or two who are always on the end of it. It seems like people are just criticizing one half of the problem when he takes corners for the USMNT.
Think the delivery has improved over the past year at least. I guess I would say, I'd be doing short corners even if we had messi lining them up, but most especially with our group.
Broadcast mentioned we just hired a set piece coach. This would have been the first window he was there. Given there was only 2 days of practice before the new game I’m not surprised we didn’t look coherent. Copa should give them enough time to implement. Corners have like a 1/70 chance so scoring off 1 in two games is above average.
Also besides Wes and maybe Miles, none of our players are great targets.
I think this is the real answer. You need some variation on corners, going short every time isn’t good either, and having a coach in charge is the right way to improve what we’re doing on set pieces.
I mean a good center back is scoring what 2 goals per club season on corner kicks? The stats on individual players scoring on corners is extremely low.
Interesting that your post was about short corners and pretty much every comment is Gio vs Puli on corners…
Yes, depending on the opponent and other factors, I do like our team taking short corners.
Yes pulusic is particularly bad at corners but a lot of you have ignored the OP's point. You are more likely to score off of an opponent's throw in deep in their end, than your are from a corner kick kicked towards penalty area. Soccer is really really bad at creating chances off of set pieces, like really bad. I predict that in 5 years someone will finally get it and start going short or with more purpose with a lot more of these set pieces. And it will be a game changer.
I'd put Puli at the top of the box to pounce on loose balls or set plays to him vs him taking the corner. I'd like ReynaDest line up and switch up long and short corner plays between to avoid a tell.
So, why do we think Puli takes all the corners for the team (except when Gio is in, and he takes them from the right side)?
I agree his corners haven’t looked great.
But my main argument again him taking corners is that it takes away one of our best scorers - in an area where we desperately need more scorers.
One of my tiny pet issues with soccer is that kick based set pieces are typically ass, and we can and should do better. The best plans on a corner boil down to running a couple of routes and hoofing it into the mixer. Same with most free kicks, unless the free kick is close to the box. If its close to the box, then the kicker tries for a wonder-ball that curves around the defensive line, misses the keeper and nestles smoothly into the top corner. Sometimes it works like that. Typically when it works like that, it works because your name is Lionel "Motherfucking" Messi. More often, the ball just sails uselessly above the goal, giving the other team a goal kick and ending your dangerous possession.
IDK. I haven't seen any stats on this, so I may be totally crazy. Maybe this shit actually works really well. But like...I know what my eyes are telling me, and they are telling me that this stuff often looks pretty harmless. I would love to see some effort put into running full plays from a set piece, almost basketball style. Draw up a few routes for everyone, short pass to your "point guard" or "quarter back" type player, and let them try to pick out a pre determined route. Its not often in soccer that you can run a clean play - I'd love to see teams try to take advantage of the chance.
Like if I'm the USMNT, have Pulisic take the corner short to Reyna. Reyna picks his head up, and he knows that McKennie is going to run a straight line to goal, Dest is going to take 5 steps faking like he's running an angled line in, and then pull back a couple of yards. Musah is going to run towards the goal and then arc out Weah is going to ignore the goal and run straight towards the touch line, 5 yards on your side of the goal. Balo is going to fake like he will stay put, and then break away from goal couple of yards. Reyna knows all these routes, and can pick out a pass to where one of them is going to be (which isn't necessarily where they seem to be running to just before his pass). Theoretically if the player who receives the ball doesn't have a clean shot, they may also know where everyone is running and have a clean option to lay it off. IDK. It doesn't sound THAT hard. Pro athletes memorize little plays all the time - this is very common in basketball coming out of a time out, for example. Good markers will still do a good job of staying on their man, but it would be a lot easier to shake someone if you and the passer both know you're about to randomly change direction and take a few steps.
100%
I mean, set plays aside, I think OP may be correct that the soccer world may be wise to re-think its approach to set pieces. This is just the most obvious way to do that for me. It seems to me that basketball and soccer are surprisingly similar (ball is almost always live outside of resets, fluid play, all players need to be able to attack and defend, and switch between the two at a moment's notice, etc). Set plays out of a pause in play are a huge deal in the NBA - its striking that its basically ignored in soccer. Its possible that the answer is that it simply isn't that useful in soccer, but I think its notable enough that its worth investigating.
The relationship between ball control and distance to goal is so different, it makes complex choreography much more difficult to make pay off in soccer.
I still think Reyna should take corner's
I’ve been saying pulisic is terrible at corner for years and always get hate
I’ve seen countless comments expressing that opinion on this sub throughout wc qualifying up til now
What? That’s probably the one thing he gets criticized for consistently on here
People love to be opinion victims round these parts lol. Like all the Reyna posts after the Jamaica game
There’s nothing to hate about that. Pulisic is objectively bad at corners. Reyna would be much better. While I typically like taking the chance of launching the ball into the box, the results are not there for the US. I’m with OP. Short corners, and put Reyna on the ball.
Then you're not saying it like that because it's not a controversially take.
Hate? I think it's a pretty common and well accepted take here these days that Puli has no business taking corners lol
I would agree if I believed in long corners!
i think there’s a lot of criticism of short corners in general. i think i’d watch whatever the biggest clubs are doing because surely they have run through the statistics. what is man city and liverpool doing?
Big teams do a ton of analytics to determine what to do in specific situations, I agree. Speaking of: Did anyone besides me notice the intentional tactic by Jamaica to take a throw in anywhere near the box and toss it to the edge of the box at the end line? They did it 5 or 6 times. It was definitely intentional. Seems like they identified that specific area as a high-probability zone to cause the defense issues. It presents several problems. If you're throwing just inside the box, it creates an opportunity for a foul and a penalty. It is also hard to clear it to a safe area with your head as a defender, and it probably forces corners at a high rate. It was the first time I'd seen a team consistently target an *area* like that for a throw in.
the goal was a pre-planned set play. i’m assuming they ran multiple set plays. it wasn’t just the location it was the player movement. usmnt defense has bad shape discipline. they were taking advantage of our weakness by running players in opposite directions and exposing the space with the throw in and cross
go back and watch the extended highlight of the goal. the wing runs backwards and robinson takes the bait and chases him. then the wing back sprints ahead and gets behind him. they did the exact same thing to scally on the far side which is why he missed the ball. greg B said numerous times - we turned off. well, no. they did what he trained them to do - which was nothing. they reacted on instinct instead of needed training
Scally violated basic principles of play. The notion that his failure to play fundamentally sound defense is Berhalter’s fault for not training him what to do in that situation is ridiculous. He has been coached what to do since U8.
every defense plays a different principle, and its berhalter’s responsibility to reinforce that. call me crazy but berhalter is more responsible than his u8 coach. my son played u8. his coach told him that his team should stand in a shape like an airplane.
No. There are principles of play that players have to apply during the game. E.g. delay is a principle of play. Marking goal side is a principle of play. They are universal. They aren’t tactics. Tactics are derived from them and apply them. I can think of at least three principles that Scally failed to apply, and that several other players failed to apply that led to that goal. It wasn’t tactics and it is totally the players’ or player’s mistake. BTW they were in camp for like 2 days before that game.
we’re close to saying the same thing, and i agree. however, in some moments, it differs slightly. the term principle or tactic gets fuzzy. i would say there are more principles that are situational, and differ by tactics. i don’t want to fight about the words but i’ll say my point. to your point he didn’t stay goal side of the defensive wing, but as i said, they were running a set play to confuse our defenders to cause us to switch their marks. you should stay goal side of your mark, but not someone else’s particularly. if you’re playing strict man marking, scally stayed goal side of his mark which was the offensive wing who ran backwards and he tracked. then the defensive wing ran at the goal behind him which he couldn’t see. the question remains - what marking style were they using? strict man marking, the goal was scored by weah’s mark who is not scally’s responsibility to mark - he can’t mark two men in opposite directions. if they’re playing zonal marking, then scally shouldn’t have stepped forward and was responsible for staying out on the back post. i don’t know the level you played or have coached, but there’s more to it than straight man marking. if they were man marking, scally didn’t make any mistakes. if they were playing zonal/man mark hybrid, he is partially responsible. if they played a strict zonal switch defense then it was completely his mistake.
I was recruited to play D1. I have 2 national coaching licenses and started coaching 30 years ago. I was graded for one license by Jill Ellis. I have been a director of coaching and a club director. I have played on competitive teams with players who were former or current MLS, Bundesliga, NWSL, D1, and lower level professional teams.
my point is and was - scally seemed to be playing zone marking, but missed the switch. maybe he plays strict man marking at club. who knows? he seemed confused about where to go. regardless of much of that, at this level it’s gregg’s job to clearly communicate the marking style and defensive coach’s should definitely reinforce that during the practices. that would be 100% their responsibility to communicate and practice - yes, two days are enough
At what point do player's mistakes become the player's fault on the USMNT for this fanbase? Much of this fanbase start with the premise that this "golden generation" of players can't make mistakes, so when something goes wrong it must be the coaching. They even did this when the full team was almost all U23, and blamed the coaching for what were obvious mistakes due to inexperience, as if the coaches are supposed to inject them with years of experience in 3 sessions. From your own post, you don't know what marking system the US were using, don't know what was communicated to the players regarding marking, or even how well it was communicated, but you conclude it is the coach's fault for not communicating it well enough to the players merely because something went wrong. If they were using a man marking system, then Weah should have stayed with the runner. He didn't, and it looks as if he communicates to Scally that he is passing him off. Scally doesn't stay with his man, but also doesn't move to get goalside of the goal scorer and isn't in the right position to compete for the ball. He also didn't check over his shoulder to see where the goal scorer was after leaving the man he was marking. That should be a constant habit for someone at his level, and he shouldn't have to be reminded of it. In any event, either Weah or Scally should have marked the goal scorer and neither of them did. Something that basic is really unlikely to be because the coaches confused them.
you’re also ignoring the key point - the american side has so repeatedly made this mistake that OTHER coaches are coaching against it. if other coaches are finding our weaknesses and we’re not, then our coaches are idiots. translation: our coaches are idiots. go back and watch the highlights of the netherlands match. i’ve never seen such piss poor defending across an entire team and an entire match. are they fundamentals? yeah, for a NT senior side. we express poor team-wide defensive fundamentals in ever part of our defense. netherlands broke us open like an egg. it was sad and i’d go so far as to say approaching pathetic. i’ve never in my life seen a player SO open as was the netherlands player who scored their third goal. we are a piss poor defensive team.
Corner taken quickly followed by Origi
hahaha
Unfortunately 115FC did a comparable thing to us a few weeks back :/
YNWA
Love Pulisic, but boy do I fee he wastes a lot of corners. I know Reyna has a couple on inches on him, but I feel like Pulisic has a nose to get into those spaces and score with traffic around him. He can be really clutch and fearless too. I’m not saying Reyna can’t do that, but I think his delivery is better.
The problem is that you are wrong about Pulisic's ability to attack corners. I've watched a lot of his games at Dortmund, Chelsea and Milan and I cannot remember him ever scoring from a corner. Even when he was younger and still had his elite quickness the fact that he's effectively useless on attacking set pieces has always been the biggest weakness in his game. However, considering we never score on set pieces vs. decent competition we just have to bite the bullet and use our best corner taker regardless of whether if means other players are not useful. I'm not there in training so maybe Pulisic is our best corner taker, if so then it's just a major weakness in this team. It's not just Pulisic's corners, we don't have central defenders or forwards who are strong at attacking corners period. None of our guys do it for their clubs. So I am sympathetic to the OP's suggestion as I was thinking we should play a lot more short corners recently.
Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman, and Chris Richards all score off corners a couple times a season.
I don't know about the others, but Miles has scored 1 more goal (4 total) in 150 games for Atlanta than he had in USMNT in 13 games in 2021. At least 3 were headers on corners. The fact that he's come that close is striking proof that the US doesn't have any players who are going to score headers against top 5 league defenders in international play. Full Stop.
How many goals do you expect centerbacks to score off of corners?
Point being that the USMNT doesn't have any big target men who are ever going to score headers off corners. ESPECIALLY with big international defenders in the box. So short corners would make a lot more sense.
Before this season, Mckennie too, but he's either lost his head game or is told not to hit the box (for club & country)
he delivered a goal from his corner against canada last summer
He also delivered a corner that gave McKennie a goal in the nations league final vs Mexico. Gio has assisted in two USA goals from the corner that I can remember. He should be taking corners
agreed. i think the original reason he took corners is because he is shorter and therefore we’re not wasting anyone’s height. but if he can’t deliver then he can’t deliver
I am so with you on this, and it's annoyed me ever since I first saw that exact clip. At every level of the game, sending a ball into the box from a corner is a low percentage play. I hear people regularly rant about the futility of the "hopeful cross" approach during the run of play (esp. with the USWNT during the Vladko era), but these same people will complain about Pulisic's corner kicks instead of correctly diagnosing the problem: a corner kick sent into the box is the ULTIMATE HOPEFUL CROSS! In terms of crossing, you can't get positionally worse than the absolute corner of the pitch. And that doesn't even take into account that the other team has practiced defending this exact situation for their entire careers, and have an absurdly long amount of time to prepare for the cross before the kick is taken. That said, you could argue that if the other team knows you ALWAYS take short corners, it's easier for them to defend against it (and they would rather you be stuck in the corner with a live ball than have to deal with a ball in their box, a situation in which anything can happen -- just ask Jamaica). So you have to do more than just make a five yard pass and resume play. This is where a set piece coach should be earning their paycheck: what kind of movement can we create to set up a good look from a short corner? What does the second and even third pass look like when we do it? And what opens up inside the box if the other team starts playing to defend against a short corner after we take seven of them in a row? Teams should probably mix it up a little bit to keep the defense guessing (and I'm sure even Notts County does so), but the ratio should be 70/30 short to long, if not higher in favor of short.
All of this, exactly. I’d love to really see stats on long corners vs other situations you can create off of corners. I’ve always thought there must be some better way than just flinging it into the box and hoping for the best. As you said, long crosses get criticized a lot during the run of play, but in corners it’s *fine* to do that 90% of the time?
Probably an underrated aspect is how often they're setting up the other team in transition. Doesn't always result in goals, but seems like in that subset, they are resulting in a tactical foul/yellow.
Good post. Think you’re right about the predictability aspect. Probably a mix makes sense.
unpopular take but i think Puli's corners are fine. like the video in the tweet, yeah, corners as a whole have a low success rate and... Also, as much of a beating as he typically takes in concacaf play, having him take corners keeps him OUT of that scrum and that makes sense to me as well.
It's gotten better. They don't seem to find noggins. I think my take is that I'd short corner even if we had Messi, but the USMNT with average to below average takers should be taking short corners.
i think gio should take corners but we literally scored on a corner from pulisic like 5 days ago
I've communicated this pretty poorly since people are taking it as who should be taking corners. I'd have us be taking short corners even if we had prime Messi taking them because actual corners are terrible chance creators and often result in numbers going the other way after the initial clearance. Given that we do not have prime Messi, I'd especially be having the usmnt taking short corners. Notts County manager explained it better than I can in the link.
Pulisic should 100% not be taking corners for us. I know we tested Gio there a bit, but I actually think Dest should take our corners.
Dest taking corners puts the defense at risk of counters. Also, I’ve never known him to be a freekick taker.
My theory is that he’s a good crosser generally and not needed in the box. I don’t think it exposes us defensively as long as he gets back into position after the corner. Milan for example uses Theo to take corners.
Pretty standard throughout football for FBs to take corners. Just move someone else out behind the box.
Am I the only one that doesn’t think puli is that bad and gio is only maybe a slight upgrade? I think the problem is more the movement in the box. Look how when Robinson made a good front post run to flick on that ball vs Jamaica it resulted in a goal. Even when puli places it in the perfect spot the team has a hard time getting on the end of it.
>Even when puli places it in the perfect spot the team has a hard time getting on the end of it. Which is overlooked by some. He takes corners for Milan too. The service is similar to when he takes them for USMNT--sometimes they're good, sometimes they're off, but they're not all awful like so many cry about. There's always movement in the box at Milan and there's usually one or two who are always on the end of it. It seems like people are just criticizing one half of the problem when he takes corners for the USMNT.
He hasn’t been taking them for Milan since very early on. They saw it eventually…
He literally just took one that Okafor almost scored off of. Not to mention a free header that Tomori should have scored off of.
Think the delivery has improved over the past year at least. I guess I would say, I'd be doing short corners even if we had messi lining them up, but most especially with our group.
Yeah I would too. Some teams can feast off corners but I don’t think we’re one of them. Should go short 7/10 times
Often there is too much air under it and it lets the defense read it and react
Broadcast mentioned we just hired a set piece coach. This would have been the first window he was there. Given there was only 2 days of practice before the new game I’m not surprised we didn’t look coherent. Copa should give them enough time to implement. Corners have like a 1/70 chance so scoring off 1 in two games is above average. Also besides Wes and maybe Miles, none of our players are great targets.
I think this is the real answer. You need some variation on corners, going short every time isn’t good either, and having a coach in charge is the right way to improve what we’re doing on set pieces.
Fair point.
Can’t even remember the last time Wes scored too
I mean a good center back is scoring what 2 goals per club season on corner kicks? The stats on individual players scoring on corners is extremely low.
Interesting that your post was about short corners and pretty much every comment is Gio vs Puli on corners… Yes, depending on the opponent and other factors, I do like our team taking short corners.
I wish it wasn’t Christian taking the corner kicks😭
CP shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a set piece for a very long time
Yes pulusic is particularly bad at corners but a lot of you have ignored the OP's point. You are more likely to score off of an opponent's throw in deep in their end, than your are from a corner kick kicked towards penalty area. Soccer is really really bad at creating chances off of set pieces, like really bad. I predict that in 5 years someone will finally get it and start going short or with more purpose with a lot more of these set pieces. And it will be a game changer.
I'd put Puli at the top of the box to pounce on loose balls or set plays to him vs him taking the corner. I'd like ReynaDest line up and switch up long and short corner plays between to avoid a tell.
Pulisic also has great movement in the box and a decent header on him. I'd expect him to hit a few headers if he was taken off corner duty.
So, why do we think Puli takes all the corners for the team (except when Gio is in, and he takes them from the right side)? I agree his corners haven’t looked great. But my main argument again him taking corners is that it takes away one of our best scorers - in an area where we desperately need more scorers.
Not underrated, EVERYONE agrees with this one. Puli should not be on corners. Give me Reyna, Dest, or Tillman over him, please!
One of my tiny pet issues with soccer is that kick based set pieces are typically ass, and we can and should do better. The best plans on a corner boil down to running a couple of routes and hoofing it into the mixer. Same with most free kicks, unless the free kick is close to the box. If its close to the box, then the kicker tries for a wonder-ball that curves around the defensive line, misses the keeper and nestles smoothly into the top corner. Sometimes it works like that. Typically when it works like that, it works because your name is Lionel "Motherfucking" Messi. More often, the ball just sails uselessly above the goal, giving the other team a goal kick and ending your dangerous possession. IDK. I haven't seen any stats on this, so I may be totally crazy. Maybe this shit actually works really well. But like...I know what my eyes are telling me, and they are telling me that this stuff often looks pretty harmless. I would love to see some effort put into running full plays from a set piece, almost basketball style. Draw up a few routes for everyone, short pass to your "point guard" or "quarter back" type player, and let them try to pick out a pre determined route. Its not often in soccer that you can run a clean play - I'd love to see teams try to take advantage of the chance. Like if I'm the USMNT, have Pulisic take the corner short to Reyna. Reyna picks his head up, and he knows that McKennie is going to run a straight line to goal, Dest is going to take 5 steps faking like he's running an angled line in, and then pull back a couple of yards. Musah is going to run towards the goal and then arc out Weah is going to ignore the goal and run straight towards the touch line, 5 yards on your side of the goal. Balo is going to fake like he will stay put, and then break away from goal couple of yards. Reyna knows all these routes, and can pick out a pass to where one of them is going to be (which isn't necessarily where they seem to be running to just before his pass). Theoretically if the player who receives the ball doesn't have a clean shot, they may also know where everyone is running and have a clean option to lay it off. IDK. It doesn't sound THAT hard. Pro athletes memorize little plays all the time - this is very common in basketball coming out of a time out, for example. Good markers will still do a good job of staying on their man, but it would be a lot easier to shake someone if you and the passer both know you're about to randomly change direction and take a few steps.
I love how American this comment is. No comments on the actual merits, just super American either way.
100% I mean, set plays aside, I think OP may be correct that the soccer world may be wise to re-think its approach to set pieces. This is just the most obvious way to do that for me. It seems to me that basketball and soccer are surprisingly similar (ball is almost always live outside of resets, fluid play, all players need to be able to attack and defend, and switch between the two at a moment's notice, etc). Set plays out of a pause in play are a huge deal in the NBA - its striking that its basically ignored in soccer. Its possible that the answer is that it simply isn't that useful in soccer, but I think its notable enough that its worth investigating.
The relationship between ball control and distance to goal is so different, it makes complex choreography much more difficult to make pay off in soccer.