"zonal marking" for dummies

Imagine a penalty area. Imagine a corner kick. Imagine Luka Modric is taking the corner kick, that might look something like this...

...Now imagine you are Bayern Munchens defence. Where do you want to be standing? Do you want to be standing a) in a line under the ball unable to have any chance of attacking it, or b) in front of or behind the ball in a position to attack. Imagine you've selected option a, that might look something like this...

Admittedly not a brilliant picture so I'll fill you in on the details. 5 Bayern Munchen players form an entirely useful line along the six yard box, giving 5 Real Madrid attackers between 5 and 10 yards of room to get a running start for their jumps. If we accept that running jumps are better than standing jumps, and that the edge of the six yard box usually at some stage interjects the trajectory of the ideal corner, it's not a leap to suggest that what Bayern's defence has intelligently done is start in its ideal finishing position. Still, by no means necessarily fatal, let's play it on a bit and see what happens...

Note the goalkeeper stood completely flat-footed on the line. Also note the single player in the penalty box who is at this stage jumping for the ball. He is a man in white named Ronaldo. Note the persons in red and how adequately they are positioned to win a header (something one might anticipate needing to win when a corner is awarded), you might note that the adequacy of their positioning is 'somewhat lacking'. It's worth at this stage analysing the range of possibilities for what could be about to occur. By their own complacency Bayern's defence has ruled itself out of winning any headers, so the choices are a) a Real Madrid player headers the ball off target, b) everyone misses the ball, c) Sergio Ramos opens the scoring. Let's play it on a little further...

It may be a little difficult to tell if the ball is goalward bound or not from that image, but let's at least summarize what we can see. Count for me, if you will, the number of Bayern players with more than one foot off the ground. Count also the number of Bayern players stood with legs apart and feet planted completely flat on the floor. Perhaps you may notice something of a discrepancy here, you may also have noticed other discrepancies, you may have noticed the triangle that three Bayern players have successfully formed around Madrid's Sergio Ramos, you may notice what they are doing. For those of you who love multiple choice, here's another one, are the three Bayern defenders a) attacking the ball, b) challenging Ramos, c) standing and watching? I'll let you work that one out for yourselves. In the meantime, let's play it on a little further and see what it all comes to...

Well it seems to have come to a lot of standing around and watching. But I'm sure it's just an isolated incident...

Well, okay, two isolated incidents...

Or whatever, call it three isolated incidents. The third being my particular favourite. Note again the ratio of Bayern feet on the floor to off it. Also note the large space in the centre of the penalty box, notice the stastuesque Munchen players doing a little something you'll have by now come to call Standing and Watching (or zonal marking as some people will still insist upon calling it).

To be fair, United had the best corner conversion rate in the Premier League last season, scoring from a massive 6% of their total corners. This is because with man marking it's perfectly easy to get away from a corner without conceding. By going touch tight to the attacker you are not only as well positioned as he is (i.e. if the ball comes into a given space you and the attacker are equally likely to collide with it), but even if you lose the header you make it more difficult for him to direct it, and thereby decrease the probability of him successfully guiding it into the goal. As soon as you mark spaces you leave spaces, if the ball is then aimed into these spaces the odds of your opponent reaching the ball not only increase, but also on the increase are the odds of him being able to hit the target given the total lack of a challenge coming in on him. So suddenly those very low odds of actually getting a goal direct from a corner kick begin to increase with every man you take away from a man and allocate a patch of grass to.
Watch the United goal through and tell me if that looks even passable at schoolboy level...

The Managerigoround

This morning we're dealing with managers in various ways. Starting with our personal vendetta...
Who Deserves the Boot...
Davey Moyes. Obviously. The Mirror claims United are setting up a secret deal with Van Gaal to take over after he's done with Holland at the World Cup, though why they're bothering letting him stay in charge when he knows he's done as soon as it's over I'm not entirely sure (and I could honestly be talking about either of them).
Brian McDermott. 3 wins in 23 games, 8 defeats in 9, 8 points clear of the relegation zone. No actually, I wouldn't call that play-off form. Also, regarding the 3 wins, 2 against the bottom 2 and the most resounding one when he'd been sacked. Nice work Brian. 4 months of categorical proof the team is better off without you.
Harry Redknapp. If you can't win the Championship with Ravel Morrison, Yossi Benayoun, Charlie Austin and the other 3,800 players he's signed then you really really don't deserve to be in work. When you're being humbled by 10-man Bournemouth and you think Modibo Maiga is a good signing, well...

Who's on the Verge...
Alan Pardew. The fans are slightly on his back. Only 86% of Geordies are against him, I mean that's bearly an overwhelming majority. That's an actual figure as well, 86% of fans think he should get the sack. Bless him he thinks it's just because the team keeps losing, not because he's mental...

...'he's lucky Meyler didn't go down', or is he actually lucky Meyler didn't twat him?
Ole Gunnar Solksjaer. And that's in spite of his impressive wins over Fulham AND Norwich. Honestly getting on his back just because the performances are rubbish and the tactics make no sense and because he signed Kenwyne Jones and a bunch of random Norwegians and because they're going to get relegated. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Tim Shitwood. Well, by some accounts he's as good as gone, and that's in spite of actually winning a game, and in spite of having the full, unequivocal backing of Emmanuel Adebayor. Some have criticised his plan of playing Gylfi Sigurdsson and Nabil Bentaleb in the centre of midfield away against a free-scoring Liverpool side while leaving Sandro and Dembele on the bench, and, well, frankly, they were right to criticise it because it is the equivalent of attempting to win a Formula 1 event with a fire extinguisher and an office chair.

Who's just plain under-pressure...
Pepe Mel.  The basically lovely and cuddleable Pepe Mel. At least his team is struggling with a plan, Ole's plan to save Cardiff from sinking appears to be to just sit back and hope it basically resolves itself.
Arsene Wenger. I know, it's mental. I mean, you don't win any silverware in 9 years, and suddenly you're a failure. You don't even give the merest hint of a title challenge in a decade, and suddenly you're 'under pressure'. You do everything you can - you sign incredible world-class talent like Olivier Giroud and Mikel Arteta, and STILL people give out to you. I mean, if you can't concede 6 away at City and Chelsea and then 5 away at Liverpool and then get spanked away at Goodison, then what is the world coming to? It's not as if Arsene doesn't have a plan, he plans to have the team continue doing the same thing regardless of the circumstances. That's a plan. I mean technically that is what it is, it's just a very very shit one. 
Gus Poyet. Sunderland are starting to look just a tinsy bit pathetic, the way they manage to get resoundingly beaten while putting up absolutely not even the merest hint of a fight. But it's alright, because they're only bottom, so it can't get any worse. On the one hand Gus steered them to the Capital One LDV Vans Carling Coca-Cola Shield final, on the other he did sign Santiago Vergini, and he actually seems to think that was a good idea.

Who's trundling along nicely...
Mark Hughes. Has steered Stoke to a very tidy position in the league. They're still Stoke, and that's still not really a brilliant thing to be, but at least they're safe, and that is literally the best they could possibly have hoped for.
Tony Pulis. Seems to have made the improbable probable by steering Crystal Palace to something that looks like safety, while his predecessor has lurched from one meek slide toward relegation to another as he bravely oversees the ever-hilarious demise of the most abominable entity in the known universe; Milwall.
Robbie Martinez. Might actually steer Everton to a Champions League place the way he's going about things. Basically at the end of last season Everton fans loved David Moyes, and now many of them won't even be able to remember what that was like.

Who's doing ridiculously well...
Diego Simeone. For starters he's made a 3 horse race from only 2 and a half horses, and now he's dumped one of the other horses out of the Champions League. Brendo Rogers. Getting the best out of basically everyone and brilliantly converting Steven Gerrard from a free-roaming midfield player into a less cultured Scouse Bastian Schweinsteiger, they might even take it right down to the wire before not actually winning the title.

And who is still alive...
Roy Hodgson. Still going at the ripe old age of 97, still managing to chew without assistance and still managing to just about tell the difference between Adam Lallana and Jay Rodriguez when drawing his squads into his Times crossword, though he does have to be continually reminded that he can't actually select Tom Finney, Stanley Matthews, or Charles II.

And finally...

'Even Demba Ba is more prolific than you and he's not usually allowed on the pitch'.