Barcelona are on average, the shortest team in Europe but they have an excellent record when it comes to defending set pieces. There is a perception that defending set pieces is a function of height and physicality but Barcelona have challenged this belief by employing an effective zonal marking system when defending corners.
THEORY INTO PRACTICE
The point of zonal marking is to defend the danger zones at corners, which are the near post and the area around the penalty spot. The team is set up so that the best headers defend these zones regardless of how the opposition lines up. A final point is that after the initial ball is cleared from the corner, all defenders must move forward quickly away from the goal line in order to create an offside trap.
Barcelona's set up when defending corners
The image above shows how Barcelona typically line up when defending corners. As you can see the Barcelona players are mostly ignoring what the opposition (Mallorca) are doing and sticking to their zones. Pique(red) usually defends the near post zone and Puyol patrols the penalty spot zone. This makes sense as they are the best headers of the ball in the team. In the image above, Milito(blue) has replaced Puyol but the zonal assignments remain the same. Xavi (yellow) usually stand in front of Pique to cut out the low flat corners that teams use as a surprise tactic. Another key player is Iniesta (black) who stands close to the edge of the penalty box, clearly not picking anyone up. His role is to prevent the cut- back corner to the shooters lurking just outside of the penalty area. All the other defenders patrol the penalty box zone to deal with knock-downs in case the initial ball is not cleared.
One last thing to note is that Barcelona do not put any players on the goal line at either of the goal posts. This is considered HERESY in British football but Barcelona do it all the time with success. The reason they dont put any players on the goal line is because it would be very difficult to create an offside trap after the initial ball is cleared. This was the flaw in Mexico’s implementation of zonal marking, the player on the far post kept playing people onside as he was late to push up.
In this specific game Mallorca scored when Pique, the most important defender, missed his header. This shows that no matter how good the tactic is, the players still have to execute their roles for it to be effective.
Barcelona clearly not man marking
Above we have Barcelona zonal marking against Arsenal in the Champions League. The set up is the same but the personnel has changed. Pique and Puyol were not available so Busquets was defending the near post zone and Abidal was defending the penalty spot zone. Xavi and Iniesta are in their usual roles cutting off the surprise corners. We see that there is an Arsenal player standing right in front of Valdes but Barcelona ignore him and just stick to their zones. Most teams would man mark this player as they do not want him blocking off the goalkeeper but this would go against the theory of zonal marking. Once again Barcelona have no players standing at either post.
In this game it is again the near post zone defender (Busquets) who makes an error and the opposition scores, proving just how important his role is in this tactic.
CONCLUSION
Barcelona’s zonal marking system covers up for their lack of height and makes them very difficult to score against from corners. The system only needs 2 or 3 good headers of the ball because the other players perform tasks that do not require aerial ability. They have shown that strategy and concentration are more important than height when it comes to defending corners. Teams with short players could learn a lot from this system and use similar ideas to overcome their physical weaknesses.
Jude
August 7, 2011
Good to have you back! Great stuff as usual, there’s plenty written about Barca’s attack but not much about how good their defence is, so this is a welcome piece.
HW
August 13, 2011
Thanks for this article. Set pieces, especially defending set pieces, is a topic that needs to be addressed in football blogs.
Ivo S
August 14, 2011
Very interesting analysis. I have to say I haven’t noticed this before. Should we expect hanging corners to the second post for towering center forwards to finish this season then?
defensiveminded
August 15, 2011
Thank you for the comment. If teams start targetting the far post then Barcelona will have won because that area is not very dangerous. Valdez could easily come for those hanging corners. the whole point of zonal marking is to force teams away from the danger zones.
MentatYP
August 16, 2011
Liverpool have started doing this already with Andy Carroll, perhaps in anticipation of playing against Barcelona… er… next year? Might as well get good at it now, right?
Long Island Gunner
August 15, 2011
It would seem to me that the “counter” to this defensive tactic is to play the corner beyond the far post for an initial headed / volleyed delivery back across the face of goal for the attacking players to come on to. The success rate of the the initial header/ volleyed ball should be reasonably high as Barca do not defend that area as a “danger zone” and the reverse ball back across the face of goal should create positioning problems / mismatches for the defenders who must chase back to goal to defend the headed / volleyed service.
Swiftogs
August 16, 2011
Irregardless…???!!!
Swizzl
August 16, 2011
Cool, I couldn’t agree more…
varmint
August 16, 2011
‘irregardless’ is brilliant.
E2
August 16, 2011
Good article. It makes a nice change from the British press blaming Zonal marking for seemingly everything. A good example would be when Benitez was implementing it. Everytime they conceded from a corner Andy Gray in particular would just blame zonal marking, more specifically ‘ if your man to man you know what your responsibility is’. They seemed to forget that teams concede when man to man marking as well and your article clearly shows how responsibility can be sensibly split up.
johnnyr
August 17, 2011
“they have an excellent record when it comes to defending set pieces.”
Is this true? What is their record? Their main defence rests on keeping possession and not conceding corners and free kicks. Can you tell us how their record on defending corners compares to other teams?
defensiveminded
August 17, 2011
Thank you for the response.
It is difficult to get reliable football statistics, especially for comparison purposes so some of this will be subjective.
Last season they conceded about four corners a game and only conceded three headed goals the whole season. Three goals conceded from 137 corners in a season. That sounds pretty good to me but I would love to have more stats to look at.
I am not claiming that they are the best at defending set pieces, only that their system works for them.
http://www.fcbarcelona.com/web/english/futbol/temporada_10-11/estadistiques/jugadors/Equip/fitxa.html
Varun
August 18, 2011
3 goals from 137 corners is an absurd statistic.
Unreal, The so called British Experts must smell some conspiracy there.
Ravin Tambimuttu
August 17, 2011
Great analysis
Dar
August 18, 2011
Interesting that in the Aug 17 second leg of the super cup RM played a number of corners long, not to the back post, but to a place slightly farther from the endline than the penalty spot. They looked to hit Benzema in that spot, and RM’s first goal came when he received the ball there and played it back in to the six yard box with pace.
defensiveminded
August 18, 2011
Yes it shows that Mourinho is trying to find any potential weaknesses as usual.
The problems came from Barcelona not implementing the strategy properly. For the first goal Abidal did not push up with the rest of the team and played Madrid onside. Barcelona looked sluggish the whole game so this is probably just rustiness. Using Mascherano in the Puyol role is also problematic because he is not that good in the air. Madrid were definitely targetting the zone he was defending.
Did anyone notice Barcelona make any adjustments to the usual marking set-up ? They seem to be lining up as I described above but I may have missed something.
wendelovermats
August 18, 2011
I’m still a little puzzled how this system deals with a far post inswinger? Seems like a couple of large attackers using an air assault on that post might control the air over the smaller swarm of defenders in that area?
Jason Jones
August 24, 2011
great article!
saint_ike
September 7, 2011
while this analysis is fantastic, i can assure you that if barca played in the english league with teams such as stoke, sunderland, and wolves just to name a few, they would concede more goals from set pieces. week in week out, this teams focus on nothing but set pieces because they know they do not have the quality to hold on to the ball and play possession style football.
A simple tactic of nullifying zonal marking done by barca is to have 2 players instead of one like fabregas in the picture above impede valdes movement from attacking any balls into the near post or penalty spot. One of the impeding players must be tall and be a good header of the ball. his job will also be to pull out and attack the penalty spot once the inswinging corner comes in. Also having 2or3 physically strong and tall headers of the ball attack the near post and penalty spot with pace once the ball comes in the box will do the trick. In this scenario, you will have 3or4 good headers of the ball competing with barca’s 2 headers of the ball in a dangerous spot which is the near post or penalty spot.
defensiveminded
September 7, 2011
You are assuming that such physical teams don’t exists in La Liga but they do (Bilbao and Osasuna for example). Anyway, I am not claiming that this system is perfect. All tactics have flaws but the point is to try to cover up the flaws as much as you can. Barcelona do this well. As long as the danger zones are protected, the chances of conceding are lower BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. Its all about reducing probabilities.
Jude
September 7, 2011
@saintike
Don’t you think that the sheer amount of possession Barca would have against such teams would limit their chances of scoring? They’ll probably only get a handful of set pieces in a match, so I doubt they’d score at all.
defensiveminded
September 7, 2011
As I mentioned above, even with their possession dominance, they still concede four corners a game. That’s about 137 corners last season but they only conceded three goals in those situations. Those stats may not be conclusive but I hope they give an idea of how effective the tactic is