David Beckham was pretty good at the whole footballing lark, wasn\u2019t he? So his dashing blonde locks may not have been to everyone\u2019s taste, but that right foot\u2026 Goldenballs could sure caress a ball like a mistress – ok, poor choice of words. But you get my point: 25 yards out, if there was one man you\u2019d want behind the ball it was him.<\/p>\n
For all the flash and glamorous lifestyle, the boy was bloody boring as a kid. Hours upon hours upon hours of practice. Relentless determination. Obsessive desire. But hey, it earned England a draw with greece, so it must have been worth it right? In all seriousness, give me his right foot over Cristiano\u2019s any day. I defended the preening Portuguese in a column last month, but his set pieces are, well, shit. Apparently, Messi would have to miss over 500 shots to lower his shots-to-goals conversion rate to his rival\u2019s level. All those ridiculous one-in-a-thousand dipping free kicks you numpty.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not free-kicks that have rattled my cage this week though. In fact, it is a much simpler set-piece – corners. Even goal kicks are more complex nowadays, especially with the obsession with ball-playing keepers, but corners are fairly limited in their scope from the deliverer\u2019s perspective. It was a crying shame that some killjoy decided taking a sneaky corner was against the spirit of the game. You know, the ones where one player disguises the tiniest touch to allow a teammate to dribble away?<\/p>\n
Anyway, the point is when you take a corner there aren\u2019t a great deal of variants. Short, curling, looping, near post, far post, or edge of the box to Scholes; that\u2019s about it. The ridiculous pantomime played out in the box itself as defenders and attackers waltz isn\u2019t the fault of the taker. Quite honestly the laughable game of cat and mouse around the penalty spot is a joke. Unfortunately, so is the quality of corners.<\/p>\n
One of football\u2019s more common diseases is for fans to think they can do better than the professionals. Why are you still in the stands then you muppet?? The one area where i will whole-heartedly agree with them on is our favourite set piece. Now humour me a moment; conjure up in your mind\u2019s eye all the most criminal sights in football. Don\u2019t for christ sake tell me them all – you should know better than to set me off on a rant by now – but try to collect all that anger, pain and disbelief into one searing point of explosion.<\/p>\n
Now play almost every corner ever taken over in your mind – what do you see? Or more to the point, what do you see not happening? CLEAR THE FIRST MAN YOU FUCKING CRETIN! Gah, I\u2019ve just shouted out loud in Moscow\u2019s Domodedovo Airport (freelancing isn\u2019t *quite* as glamorous as some may have you believe) in frustration merely typing the words. How, in the name of God, Buddha, Shiva and \u00c9ric Cantona, is it so hard?<\/p>\n
Mistakes are perfectly conceivable. Players are human, of course. But when it is your job to practice and – wait for it – kick a ball, there is no bloody excuse. I\u2019m sorry but there isn\u2019t. This isn\u2019t some deep philosophical tactical nuance; this is I repeat, KICKING A BALL. I\u2019m not looking for perfection every time, but at least something resembling an attempt to set up a teammate.<\/p>\n
A few years ago the Washington Post did a little digging into English Premier League stats. From the 10,969 corners taken between 2011-2014, 12% produced a shot on goal, while less than 2% were scored. It is bizarre how excited we often get when our side wins a corner in hindsight really. So what do these numbers tell you? If anything the pressure is not on the taker, but to get any value at all out of the situation their delivery must be honed to an artform.<\/p>\n
In an age of statistics and analysis, it is highly unlikely coaches don\u2019t know this. The inability to train players to be able to make it past the first man is therefore inexcusable. Just to clarify, I am not talking about a drilled corner looking for a deflection or flick-on. I fully accept that a hard-hit ball in low and towards the six-yard box can be effective. It\u2019s the bulk of efforts that are simply taken too weakly, as if they don\u2019t even want to score.<\/p>\n
Remember how I praised Beckham earlier? Well he represents both sides of this godawful sin. Let\u2019s start with the obvious; Barcelona, 26 May 1999, 91st minute. \u201cBeckham, in towards Schmeichel, it\u2019s come to Dwight Yorke, Giggs with the shot\u2026 Sheringham!\u201d Yes I really am that sad that I remember almost verbatim the Clive Tyldesley commentary.<\/p>\n
Pay attention though – \u201cin towards Schmeichel\u201d. It\u2019s not the fact that the \u2018keeper was up in dramatic desperation, but that Beckham aimed for him. Bayern Munich couldn\u2019t clear easily because the ball arrived in the middle of their area, and a goal arrived. \u201cBeckham, in towards Sheringham, AND SOLSKJAER HAS WON IT!\u201d Had both corners not been taken properly, United would never have been crowned European Champions that night.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, for all his metronomic accuracy, Beckham was in fact strangely poor at taking corners. Whatever your brain is telling you, it\u2019s true. This does highlight how hard it is to be good at taking corners; if even Becks struggled, everyone surely would. Why else did teams use to put the ball out for a corner against Stoke rather than suffer Rory Delap\u2019s Go-Go Gadget throw-ins?<\/p>\n
I swear that if you put me on the pitch, I would get at least half the corners past the first man without a sweat. Believe me, I am about as adept at taking them as Phil Jones, so that\u2019s sounds like some statement. Do me a favour though; forget the goals, or even the shots on target. Next Premiership game you watch, just count the number that make it into the box – and try not screaming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
David Beckham was pretty good at the whole footballing lark, wasn\u2019t he? So his dashing blonde locks may not have been to everyone\u2019s taste, but that right foot\u2026 Goldenballs could sure caress a ball like a mistress – ok, poor choice of words. But you get my point: 25 yards out, if there was one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":3726,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3113,3241,648],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n