Throw-In goals
When Liverpool appointed Thomas Grønnemark as their throw-in coach last year they got quite a bit of stick for it, mainly from Proper Football Men who think that the hyperspecialisation of coaching and laptop-wielding xG nonces are ruining football.
Perhaps they’re right, but I’ve long felt that throw-ins are an aspect of football that are overlooked.
Usually when someone mentions throw-ins as an area of football that is ripe to be exploited, it instantly conjures this sort of thing:
And while Delap’s trebuchet efforts were amazing as it felt like the last time a genuinely new innovation in football was found, long throws into the box like this aren’t the only type of goals that a smart throw-in policy can create.
But before that, there’s a more general point to make:
Throw-ins are essentially passes and, based on my experiences playing and watching football, it seems like they are turned over a disproportionately high amount. Even when they’re not, it seems like most sides are just improvising when the ball goes out of play on the sidelines and that doesn’t feel like a particularly smart way of setting up a team. If you execute the throw poorly/have a poor structure around the ball/don’t think more than one pass ahead, you can leave yourself open for a counter like this:
A little bit of thought would go a long way when it comes to organising a team in order to help them retain possession.
It’s difficult to tell whether my anecdotal experiences with throws are supported in the data because there’s not a lot of writing about. The closest I can find is an article by Eliot McKinley from this time last year, where they suggest that there were almost 64,000 throw-ins were attempted between 2015 and 2018 in MLS; an average of around 44 per game, roughly 5% of all attempted passes. McKinley then goes on to evaluate how successful MLS teams were at keeping the ball after throws by watching video and building a model to see whether there were any changes in possession in the 7 seconds after a throw-in was taken. They found that teams retained possession for >7 seconds on 60% of throws.
To put that in context, 44 passes per game is roughly the same amount as mid-table central defenders like Jack O’Connell, Steve Cook, and Jan Bednarek attempt per 90 minutes. If one of your central defenders were only completing 60% of their passes, you’d drop them for being a liability on the ball. The same sort of scrutiny should be applied to throw-in takers and it seems sensible to bring in someone to help the team get organised in these situations if you want to play a possession-oriented style.
Gains in ball retention and catapulting the ball into a crowded 6-yard box are both great ways to make use of throw-ins, but there are a plethora of other ways to manufacture chances and goals from these set pieces.
Target Man Flick-On
Utilising the same basic principle of the Delap throws from a deeper starting position, Venezuela fling the ball up to big centre forward Salomón Rondón to drag the opposition CB out of position so he can head the ball on to a team-mate driving into the vacated space.
One-Two + Dribble
Northern Ireland create a diamond with 3 players surrounding the throw-in taker. The ball gets dropped in to McNair, who drifts wide to combine with a wide player. This quick combination of passes entices his marker to double up on the player pinned to the touchline and gives McNair the space to attack on the dribble. He then gets a smart finish away from a tight angle.
Counter Attacking Trident
Similar to the Venezuela goal in that it incorporates a flick-on, Monaco turn defence into attack with three touches from a throw-in down by their own penalty area. They have a player who drops in short as a dummy before spinning around their marker to receive the lay-off from the throw recipient. A quick through ball into space releases Gelson Martins on the break and he takes care of the rest.
Catapult Counter
Bale is next to the ball as it goes out of play and, spotting that his team-mate is one-on-one with the Croatian central defender, launches a truly gargantuan throw over the top of the backline. Having a player with this kind of throw and quick thinking in his arsenal could be an enormous counter attacking weapon.
