Common Football Tactics/Practices Which Makes No Sense In Your Opinion

JeffFromHK

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As the title suggest.

IMO, the biggest one is knuckleball freekicks, its conversion rate (both direct and indirect) is much lower than the traditional bend-it-like-beckham technique (ward proase says hi!) but players are too obsessed with scoring fanciful knuckleball freekicks.

Also, defending set pieces with 10 players (Man Utd loves that!). It makes basically all second balls going to the opposition if you head the ball away and there are no focal points for you to start a counter.
If you send 10 players to defend a set piece, the opposition can throw 9 players in (so it is 10v9, with the defender:attacker ratio of 1.11:1) while if you send 1 player up front, the opposition need to send 2 players back so it is 9 players marking 8 opposition players in the box (ratio being 1.125:1, which is even better than sending 10 players back). 10 years ago 9-0-1 was common when you parked the bus (chelsea/inter say hi) but now it is mostly 10-0-0
 
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Oranges038

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Playing short to the keeper only for them to hoof it long anyway.
 

jadaba

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Corner kicks taken short, just feels like an extra pass before it's whacked into the box except with less time and space for an attacking team to pick out the right cross.
 

NicolaSacco

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adexkola said:
Traditional corner kicks. Vast majority don't get converted. Play it short and try something else.
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This is exactly correct. Given that the defending player needs to be however many yards back you’d have a guaranteed easy 10 yard pass up the touch line to improve the angle, and on top of that you’d potentially have the opportunity of doing a quick 1-2 so there would need to be 2 markers near the corner flag.

Edit, though a 1-2 with a corner taker may well end up being offside, you’d have to have a plan for that.
 

bosnian_red

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adexkola said:
Traditional corner kicks. Vast majority don't get converted. Play it short and try something else.
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Depends on that. Some teams get like a 1 in 20 success rate which isn't bad.

The ones that don't make sense are the Beckham to Scholes corners. A true 1 in 100 play, beautiful when it comes off but usually it's a waste of time. Don't want them gone though, as you always want to encourage players to try crazy things as it's entertainment ultimately, but from a logic/best plan point of view it's dumb.
 

didz

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Wingers swapping sides seems to have almost disappeared from the game. I kind of get it as it affects pressing structures nowadays, but I always thought it was a pretty nifty way of catching fullbacks out.

The OP shouts are absolutely on the money by the way. I think a few players have admitted that they only do knuckleballs because it looks better when it works. As for the corners, yeah it absolutely baffles me - "We're bad at defending these, so let's invite more of their lot into the box. Oh and those two unmarked on the edge? Sod em."
 

reddyornot

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Rashford standing near the corner when a corner is being taken, instead of being around the edge of the penalty area.
 

horsechoker

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"his team talk has changed" when a team concedes late in the first half

Seems an exaggeration in the modern game
 

FootballHQ

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Was watching our game v West Ham and never seen Emi Martinez struggle so much on corners as he did today. All West Ham did was fizz the ball in as an inswinger into six yard box.

I often wonder why clubs actively chip corners right to the back post as sometimes to even get an attempt on goal you need someone to win it at the back post then it loops up and needs another player to head it and then maybe then someone will head it towards goal. So three contacts compared to an inswinger where you just need someone to make a near post run and a glance or flick off the head and it could easily go in.
 

KeanoMagicHat

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Defender lying down under the wall. The chance of players being good enough to time it perfectly under the wall and into the corner are slim, taking a player out of the game on the ground. Maybe someone will come up with a way to counteract that.

When players are close to their box on a counter attack and then after 2-3 passes it ends up back at their own goalkeeper. Even if you were under pressure, it would have been better to risk something, anything at all, even if you lost the ball, than try to keep possession. The defensive team is back in shape and the attack is over, it's nearly always pointless.
 

CallyRed

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Persistently crossing when you don't have a particularly good header of the ball for striker.
 

HappyCamper

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Trying to mark every player on throw ins when the other team is winning and wasting time. Just leave the closest player open and force the throw in.
 

Wumminator

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JeffFromHK said:
As the title suggest.

IMO, the biggest one is knuckleball freekicks, its conversion rate (both direct and indirect) is much lower than the traditional bend-it-like-beckham technique (ward proase says hi!) but players are too obsessed with scoring fanciful knuckleball freekicks.

Also, defending set pieces with 10 players (Man Utd loves that!). It makes basically all second balls going to the opposition if you head the ball away and there are no focal points for you to start a counter.
If you send 10 players to defend a set piece, the opposition can throw 9 players in (so it is 10v9, with the defender:attacker ratio of 1.11:1) while if you send 1 player up front, the opposition need to send 2 players back so it is 9 players marking 8 opposition players in the box (ratio being 1.125:1, which is even better than sending 10 players back). 10 years ago 9-0-1 was common when you parked the bus (chelsea/inter say hi) but now it is mostly 10-0-0
Click to expand...
I used to know a coach under Fergie at United and once during the summer he had them all in to discuss the best tactics on a corner. They were literally discussing how many players to have back during an opposition corner depending on the moment. Apparently defending with ten in a high pressure game is a massive improvement statistically than having one up.
 

Amar__

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Lay said:
Players taking goal kicks
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We let our defender pass it to our keeper, who then hoofs it forward to opponents defence because our team stayed deep in our own half.

Beautiful tactics, as long as we copy modern managers without even understanding why they do it, that's the most important thing.
 

OnlyTwoDaSilvas

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Full backs always taking throw-ins, particularly when another player has the ball in their hands ready to take it, but then they stop and hand the ball to the full back. 5+ seconds passes and it gives the opposition opportunity to cover anyone who might be wide open. Full backs are often first to the ball to take the throw in, but not always. Since players can't be offside from throw-ins, you'd think more teams would take advantage of taking the throw as quickly as possible.
 

Brophs

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Aiming for the keeper when they go up for a corner. Use him as a decoy, you dopey cnuts.
 

Klopper76

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Corners are an odd one. Statistically the chances of scoring one are low. But we always see teams lump it in.

That being said, I’m not a huge fan of short corners either.

You know what, I hate corners.
 

Bobski

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OnlyTwoDaSilvas said:
Full backs always taking throw-ins, particularly when another player has the ball in their hands ready to take it, but then they stop and hand the ball to the full back. 5+ seconds passes and it gives the opposition opportunity to cover anyone who might be wide open. Full backs are often first to the ball to take the throw in, but not always. Since players can't be offside from throw-ins, you'd think more teams would take advantage of taking the throw as quickly as possible.
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I think I have taken about 3 throw ins in my life, in like 30 years of organized football, and 2 of them were called for a foul throw. If you play in the middle it is very rare you would be required to take one, maybe wingers/wide forwards should be willing to do so to keep the tempo up.

Generally football is super faddy, lying behind the wall? Everyone else is, why don't we do it as well, inverted full backs, yes, even if the players available are totally unsuited.
 

Xadek

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Direct corners are actually very effective and plenty of goals are scored from those.
"Conversion rate is bad", well there are a lot of corners in a game anyway and there's no proof short corners are more effective
Also the effectiveness can vary with the team. Is a short corner for City the same as a short corner for Burnley? Yeah don't think so.
Also consider that direct corners create a scramble that can result in follow-ups with a disorganized defense, which won't appear on stats.
 

criticalanalysis

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adexkola said:
Traditional corner kicks. Vast majority don't get converted. Play it short and try something else.
Click to expand...
Not just corner kicks but also first time free kicks. There are SO many combinations of passes and off the ball runs to EASILY beat an offside trap but almost every team and players put the ball in first time.

It's basically a free pass under no pressure to potentially another 1-3 players in space to create a better or even more direct angle for a pass/shot.
 

Oscar Bonavena

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Teams trying to play goalkicks short out from the back because it's the fashionable thing to do, even if the players they have at their disposal are singularly incapable of doing so.

Does anyone know the stats on this? Unless it's prime Barca or Pep's City, I'd be convinced teams concede more goals from this tactic than they ever create at the far end!
 

Alex99

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Bobski said:
Generally football is super faddy, lying behind the wall? Everyone else is, why don't we do it as well, inverted full backs, yes, even if the players available are totally unsuited.
Click to expand...
Coach of my team wondering why we were all absolutely fecked after 20 minutes when he decided we absolutely had to play a high-press in the eighth tier of Welsh football.
 
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