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...
