Sounders defend a set piece against New England. They didn’t score but they’re one of the better sides at converting free kicks
Niall McCusker wrote this prior to Sunday’s game with LA Galaxy
Amid the move to advanced statistical analysis in soccer one element of the game remains relatively easy to quantify; and as any metrologist will tell you – if you can measure it, you can improve it. But somehow it isn’t as fashionable to talk about the humble set-piece as is it to deconstruct the various implementations of the 4-3-3 formation or this year’s tactics-nerd favorite the 3-5-2 line-up.
At the start of last season set-piece defending in Portland was a major talking point to the extent where coach Caleb Porter visibly bristled when questioned about it. Whether they worked on improving it or an early statistical aberration balanced out over the course of the season; the conversation switched to the defensive errors from open play that were costing the team points. These were rightly blamed as the main reason the Timbers did not make the play-offs.
However, what about the other side of the set-piece coin – scoring? That managed to slip under the radar as aside from the first eight games the Timbers were scoring plenty of goals from open play. But could good or even average production from set-pieces have been enough to get them over the line even with a poor defense?
Let’s have a look at the numbers:
MLS Set-Piece scoring by Category 2014 season (squawka.com has some nice tools)
Overall only four teams got less set-piece goals than Portland’s twelve, is it coincidence that none of those four featured in the post-season?
Even the worst teams that struggle in open play tend to score occasionally from dead-ball situations. Perhaps this association is why some of the better teams or those with aesthetic aspirations like Portland are not, at least at first glance, known for excellence in this category.
In the English Premier League set-piece success has been traditionally associated with plucky underdogs who fight for the crumbs from the big-boy’s table in the hope of scraping together enough points to survive. The masters of this art are probably Sam Allardyce and Tony Pulis, it worked but it often wasn’t pretty. Higher level teams, who were already scoring plenty of goals may not have spent as much time working on restarts, but that appears to be changing.
In the Champions League even the biggest of spenders will meet teams as good as them and every source of goals must be exploited. That trophy looked to be going to Atletico Madrid last season, but for an injury time Sergio Ramos goal from a corner, while just last week two excellent corner conversions from PSG eliminated Chelsea.
In the Western Conference all the teams that beat Portland to play-off spots scored more from set-pieces. Even LA are not so aesthetically snobbish as to turn down the opportunity to use Dan Gargan’s long throws (not included in these stats) to get goals, such as the one scored by Robbie Keane at Providence Park last season.
Michel at Dallas scored four direct free-kicks, but mostly they are not a big percentage of set-piece goals. Penalties too are a whole other conversation, so let’s eliminate those and have another look at the data.
Goals from corners and crossed Free-kicks 2014 season.
Portland are still over there at the right side of the chart, but they’re only 1.5 goals below the league average of 8.5 goals from corners or crossed free-kicks. The problem is that the 3 teams that excel in this category are Dallas, Real Salt Lake and Seattle – all rivals for play-off spots in an ever more competitive Western Conference.
RSL are often touted as a model small-market club, like Portland they don’t have big money DP strikers and they generally play an attractive brand of football that earns the respect of neutral fans. However, they are clearly doing the less glamorous work on the training ground as well – swap those dead-ball goal numbers around and it would have been Portland not them in the play-offs.
Dallas have some great prospects coming out of their academy and a stable of exciting young DP’s from South America, yet without Michel’s awesome deliveries into the box there is no chance they would have been in the play-offs last season.
For Portland the opportunities are there to get dangerous free-kicks into the box, in their successful 2013 season the Timbers were the fifth most fouled team in the league, in 2014 that rose to a league-leading 526 fouls suffered (>15/game).
After an early game in Dallas last season, referring to Darlington Nagbe, Porter said:
“When you’re the most fouled player in the game and you’re getting kicked up and down the field in every single game and the referee doesn’t do anything about it to protect one of the better players in the league eventually you’re going to get a knock and you’re going to get hurt and that’s what happened. And it’s a real shame.”
Nagbe did continue to get kicked all season, narrowly failing to retain his unwanted title from 2013 as the league’s most fouled player (he was squeezed into second place by the more vertically-challenged Quincy Amarikwa).
Porter is within his rights to call out refereeing standards but perhaps the question he should be asking is would teams foul Nagbe so readily if Portland had a reputation for making them pay with effective set-piece delivery and conversion? One goal in that category in 2014 suggests teams know very well that Portland are every bit as lenient as the referees.
So why aren’t they scoring more? The main factors in getting these goals are delivery, targets and planning.
Dallas and Real Salt Lake have Michel and Javier Morales (who just assisted from another set-piece against Philadelphia as I was typing this) consistently putting superb balls into the box – foul them at your peril! Given his excellence from open play it seems almost churlish to point out that Diego Valeri’s dead-ball delivery is just not at that level. Need convincing? Count the number of times he hits the first defender in any game. That Jack Jewsbury’s service is a definite upgrade was readily apparent in the season opener, but he is likely to return to the bench when Will Johnson comes back from injury.
Jewsbury offers the Timbers improved set-piece service, but is probably only a starter until Johnson returns.
For targets every team has a couple of big central defenders to aim for, Ridgewell and Borchers should chip in with a few goals. But for all his size Fanendo Adi underwhelmed last season when trying to direct headers on goal, scoring only one. Other than that Portland are a small team, so planning becomes even more important. Quick restarts from Johnson and Valeri have caught teams off guard in the past, perhaps a return to these and some other inventive training ground routines is required.
But apart from LA and Seattle, the Timbers were the only team to score more than 60 goals, so scoring doesn’t need to be an area targeted for improvement right? Wrong.
Coaches like Porter are attempting to move beyond older tactics and bring the ‘beautiful game’ to MLS, but while other teams adhere to more ‘traditional’ styles and the refereeing allows robust and frequent challenges, some games are invariably going to become battles. When you’re in a battle the set-piece is your friend, it’s the tank that will allow you to ride over the entrenched enemy to steal those points.
We are not suggesting that Porter bring Rory Delap and his lethal arsenal of long throws out of retirement, but the numbers suggest some extra dedication to this under-appreciated art may be in order. One or two set-piece goals to turn a couple of those 13 draws into wins and last season’s story would have been entirely different.
