Why are there so few elite set piece takers nowadays?

[Hound Dog]

As per the thread title.

Apart from the usual suspects (an aging Messi, De Bruyne, Ward Prowse) I struggle to name many players whose presence on the pitch would make the opposition think twice about giving away a free kick in a dangerous area.

Compare that to the early 2000s, when you had the likes of Juninho, Mihajlovic, Beckham, Totti, Del Piero, Veron and many others all playing at the same time.

So, what gives? Anyone have any explanation for this?

 

[antsmithmk]

I think highlights reels make us think that free kick takers from the past were better than they actually were. You are unlikely to watch a highlight reel of missed free kicks if one has been put together.

 

[caid]

I'd say theres lots of reasons. The rise of stats and the realisation that the conversion rate of all but the absolute best was hopeless. It being a lean period for strikers, number 10's being out of fashion, individual brilliance being out of fashion in favour of routine and systems. Knuckleball technique probably doesn't help.

 

[Spaghetti]

The guy lying on the floor

 

[MDFC Manager]

Technique seems to have changed over time. Fewer players look to bend the ball at pace, knuckle/lace shots seem more in fashion.

 

[Pexbo]

It’s going to be purely statistically driven. Direct free kicks rarely score, often end up with goal kicks, often end up hitting the wall and turning into a counter attack.

So conversely an indirectly taken free kick probably has a higher conversion rate in the preceding 10 seconds, higher chance of retaining possession, better shot quality, higher chance of getting a corner rather than goal kick etc etc.

 

[Ibi Dreams]

It’s going to be purely statistically driven. Direct free kicks rarely score, often end up with goal kicks, often end up hitting the wall and turning into a counter attack.

So conversely an indirectly taken free kick probably has a higher conversion rate in the preceding 10 seconds, higher chance of retaining possession, better shot quality, higher chance of getting a corner rather than goal kick etc etc.

While this is all probably true, free kick shots are still pretty regular. They happen in most games, I'd bet. My gut feeling is that it's true we have fewer "specialists" now, but the overall standard may be a bit better i.e lots of players can very occasionally score one

 

[Pexbo]

Also the draft excluder means walls jump a lot higher now.

 

[horsechoker]

Because footballers aren't good at anything except tippy tappy stuff these days

 

[Matt007a]

Everyone wants to smash in a knuckleball instead of learning to place it in the corner. Ronaldo had a purple patch in his United days before totally losing the ability to score free kicks and Juninho scored a lot of free kicks that way, but apart from them every great free kick taker in history was a master of bending it into the top corner with accuracy. I'm not sure anyone can actually aim a knuckle shot into the top corner, it's real hit and hope stuff.

Messi against Liverpool is a perfect example of how you can still score from 30 yards without smashing the life out of the ball and hoping for the best.

 

[Vidyoyo]

Everyone wants to curl it into the top corner instead of learning to hit it like a rocket screaming across the sky. Messi had a purple patch in his Barca days before totally losing the ability to score free kicks and Beckham scored a lot of free kicks that way, but apart from them every great free kick taker in history was a master of knuckleballing it into the top corner with accuracy. I'm not sure anyone can actually place a ball into the top corner that accurately, it's real hit and hope stuff.

Ronaldo against Abha Club is a perfect example of how you can still score from 30 yards by smashing the shit out of the ball and hoping for the best.

 

[Oranges038]

Teams should have a designated kicker, who they wheel out to great fanfare just to take a free kicks around the box. That way you can always have a setpiece specialist in the squad, he just doesn't have to be any good at anything else, could be 5 stone over weight but if he can hit top corner from 25 yards no one cares. It will also add something different to the game, older players would be able to stick around a bit longer too.

We could have a big announcement, lights, fireworks and maybe even a few tv ads by their sponsors. It's should be all about the show. Freekicks are a magical spectacle that everyone should be in awe of.

"This freekick is brought to you by the Emir of Qatar in association with Adidias, gillette, Sainsbury's and Netflix, here is your kicker.... Daaaaaaavid Beckhaaaaaam"

 

[MiceOnMeth]

The 00s had amazing strikers, number 10s, freekick takers, individual mavericks. It was just the best time. Find it very hard to extract joy from modern football.

 

[acnumber9]

Football has generally replaced technique with being athletic. Look at best Premier League goal packages and you’ll see players like Le Tissier constantly. A player like that wouldn’t get near a Premier League team now because they don’t press. It’s depressing.

 

[Big Andy]

I'd say theres lots of reasons. The rise of stats and the realisation that the conversion rate of all but the absolute best was hopeless. It being a lean period for strikers, number 10's being out of fashion, individual brilliance being out of fashion in favour of routine and systems. Knuckleball technique probably doesn't help.

Rashford scored that beauty against Chelsea that one time, and has tried it about 3 million times since and barely hit the target. Someone should look at Beckham's technique and try to copy it.

 

[horsechoker]

Football has generally replaced technique with being athletic. Look at best Premier League goal packages and you’ll see players like Le Tissier constantly. A player like that wouldn’t get near a Premier League time now because they don’t press. It’s depressing.

Pun intended?

 

[Highfather_24]

The guy lying on the floor

 

[GeneralKenobi]

Also the draft excluder means walls jump a lot higher now.

Players are also taller than they were decades ago. Should the 10 yards be revisited?

 

[acnumber9]

Pun intended?

Very much so.

 

[Arlo]

Because football became all about being a jack of all trades, master of none. We have goalkeepers who are good with their feet but struggle to make decent saves, defenders who can play out from the back but can't read the game, strikers who press from the front but are average at finishing.

The need to have players being good at multiple things means they never actually master anything. Just look at the dearth of elite/half decent center forwards.

 

[Physiocrat]

Has anyone gone back to the old footage of games to work out some stats to compare with modern players? In this case I mean the number of freekick shots to goal percentage. Even for Juninho P I doubt the percentage is that high although would be good to compare with someone like James Ward Prowse.

 

[Jaae]

Players are getting back to the dressing rooms to go on their phones after training.

Not many players are going to stay behind to work on individual aspects of the game any more.

 

[SilentWitness]

Physical attributes and tactical intelligence are more important in the modern game than niche technical abilities.

 

[Fortitude]

Anyone want to draw a comparative between the decline of true #10’s and specialist free kick takers plummeting? It was part and parcel of the great #10’s game. Outliers like Mihajlovic, Beckham, Juninho P and perhaps Bobby Carlos existed, but the vast, vast majority were #10’s, and the best ones today, the same, and most of those are of the older stock - there are few coming up to replace those in or around their 30’s.

Further to the above, the #10 was/is by far the most skilled position on the pitch, if any role on a team is going to be a natural at free kicks, it’s them as opposed to the dots from other positions who just so happen to be freakishly good at free kicks - you’re not going to find that innate ability amongst a vast array of other positions. I’d say from those outliers (other positions), they will always be good to fantastic long passers and/or crossers of the ball, skills that are not that common or revered in the current game where solid, constructive percentage passing is preferred - basically if you don’t have that skill out the gate now, you won’t be given chances to hone it in game or campaign, which is why the likes of Trent are given special treatment. It’s also not a coincidence a Trent has such penchant for good set pieces.

But yeah, in the main: no #10’s = no spectacular talent expected to do these things as a given.

 

[El Zoido]

The 00s had amazing strikers, number 10s, freekick takers, individual mavericks. It was just the best time. Find it very hard to extract joy from modern football.

Same here. I don’t think it’s just rose tinted glasses, either. The game is super refined and data-driven now, to the point where a lot of the excitement has been sucked out of it.

 

[Withnail]

I'd say theres lots of reasons. The rise of stats and the realisation that the conversion rate of all but the absolute best was hopeless. It being a lean period for strikers, number 10's being out of fashion, individual brilliance being out of fashion in favour of routine and systems. Knuckleball technique probably doesn't help.

The conversion rate of the absolute best was pretty crap as well to be honest. There's very little point taking a shot from a free kick.

 

[Physiocrat]

Anyone want to draw a comparative between the decline of true #10’s and specialist free kick takers plummeting? It was part and parcel of the great #10’s game. Outliers like Mihajlovic, Beckham, Juninho P and perhaps Bobby Carlos existed, but the vast, vast majority were #10’s, and the best ones today, the same, and most of those are of the older stock - there are few coming up to replace those in or around their 30’s.

Further to the above, the #10 was/is by far the most skilled position on the pitch, if any role on a team is going to be a natural at free kicks, it’s them as opposed to the dots from other positions who just so happen to be freakishly good at free kicks - you’re not going to find that innate ability amongst a vast array of other positions. I’d say from those outliers (other positions), they will always be good to fantastic long passers and/or crossers of the ball, skills that are not that common or revered in the current game where solid, constructive percentage passing is preferred - basically if you don’t have that skill out the gate now, you won’t be given chances to hone it in game or campaign, which is why the likes of Trent are given special treatment. It’s also not a coincidence a Trent has such penchant for good set pieces.

But yeah, in the main: no #10’s = no spectacular talent expected to do these things as a given.

Here are the top free kick goalscorers according to:

https://www.sportsadda.com/football...otball-history-lionel-messi-cristiano-ronaldo

Player	Nationality	Goals
Juninho Pernambucano	Brazil	77
Pele	Brazil	70
Victor Legrotaglie	Argentina	66
Ronaldinho	Brazil	66
David Beckham	England	65
Lionel Messi	Argentina	65
Diego Maradona	Argentina	62
Zico	Brazil	62
Ronald Koeman	Netherlands	60
Cristiano Ronaldo	Portugal	60
Marcelinho Carioca	Brazil	59
Rodrigo Ceni	Brazil	59

 

[tomaldinho1]

I remember seeing some research into this and the results confirmed what a few people are saying, that actually the guys you name weren't that great - we just think they are because of highlight reels and, probably, some nostalgia.

Ronaldo was average, Messi was just above average, JWP was extremely consistent but not as great as you'd think. The best freekick takers were Bardhi, Milik and Maddison from memory. Think Di Maria was really high but mainly because he'd taken less, he just had a great conversion rate of about 1 in 5.

 

[Red in STL]

Because footballers aren't good at anything except tippy tappy stuff these days

That doesn't explain United because we ain't any good at that either

 

[horsechoker]

That doesn't explain United because we ain't any good at that either

We're good at the tippy but not the tappy

 

[Eric_the_Red99]

Probably because it’s seen as a luxury these days, a luxury that top teams don’t think they can afford. Under the moneyball approach which is increasingly dominant these days (and in my opinion, making football very dull), every player’s output is rigorously monitored, meaning an eye catching free kick every few games is considered nowhere near as important as what they’re doing 99% of the time that doesn’t involve a free kick.

 

[NewGlory]

As per the thread title.

Apart from the usual suspects (an aging Messi, De Bruyne, Ward Prowse) I struggle to name many players whose presence on the pitch would make the opposition think twice about giving away a free kick in a dangerous area.

Compare that to the early 2000s, when you had the likes of Juninho, Mihajlovic, Beckham, Totti, Del Piero, Veron and many others all playing at the same time.

So, what gives? Anyone have any explanation for this?

Teams have become much more educated about defending from set pieces. There are no Beckhams anymore because Beckham wouldn't score against modern teams unless team did horrible job defending or it was just insanely dangerous spot, both if which conditions have become rare?

That said, our own United has been one of the worst about conceding from set pieces...

 

[Physiocrat]

I remember seeing some research into this and the results confirmed what a few people are saying, that actually the guys you name weren't that great - we just think they are because of highlight reels and, probably, some nostalgia.

Ronaldo was average, Messi was just above average, JWP was extremely consistent but not as great as you'd think. The best freekick takers were Bardhi, Milik and Maddison from memory. Think Di Maria was really high but mainly because he'd taken less, he just had a great conversion rate of about 1 in 5.

Are you referring to this?

https://soccerment.com/bend-like-beckham-top-free-kick-takers-europe/

 

[Black Adder]

Everyone wants to curl it into the top corner instead of learning to hit it like a rocket screaming across the sky. Messi had a purple patch in his Barca days before totally losing the ability to score free kicks and Beckham scored a lot of free kicks that way, but apart from them every great free kick taker in history was a master of knuckleballing it into the top corner with accuracy. I'm not sure anyone can actually place a ball into the top corner that accurately, it's real hit and hope stuff.

Ronaldo against Abha Club is a perfect example of how you can still score from 30 yards by smashing the shit out of the ball and hoping for the best.

What?

 

[tomaldinho1]

Are you referring to this?

https://soccerment.com/bend-like-beckham-top-free-kick-takers-europe/

I think it was an Athletic article but that has the same high scoring players - maybe I've just merged the two in my head.
There was also a graph of the actual % of freekick shots to goals (which is basically the best way you can measure it) where JWP at 15% was the highest for free kick takers who had taken a lot of freekicks and randomly Coutinho had the best % of anyone (but he'd only take 30), Messi was on about 10%, Payet was remarkably low.

 

[sparx99]

I think the modern ball has a lot to do with it too. I remember growing up with the Mitre ball in the 90’s and it had this weight to it that the balls of today don’t seem to. You could get the ball over the wall and it would dip whereas todays ball seems a lot harder to bring down.

 

[sullydnl]

Since the 2008-09 season – when Opta started collecting detailed free-kick data for all of Europe’s top five leagues – there has been a discernible downward trend in the number of goals scored directly from free kicks.

So, what conclusions can we draw from this? Well, broadly speaking, great analytical advances and their increased embracing by clubs seem to have made teams more discerning with their free-kick choices. Even those sides fortunate enough to be blessed with a true dead-ball specialist may not be shooting from positions or angles which would have been prime ‘have a go’ territory 10 or so years ago. The rise in devotion to expected goals (xG) has led to overall average non-headed shot distance decreasing 3.3 metres over 15 years across the top five European leagues– and we’re seeing that phenomenon in microcosm when it comes to free kicks.

The median distance from which a final-third free kick is taken as a shot has gone down from 29.5 metres in 2008-09 to 27.6m in 2022-23, a sign that attitudes towards set-pieces are more meticulous than ever.

Markedly fewer free kicks are being awarded in the final third these days than was the case 15 years ago. The sharpest drops have come in Serie A (50% fewer final-third free kicks per game) and Ligue 1 (52.4%) – but the Premier League, LaLiga and the Bundesliga have all seen reductions of at least a third: 34.9%, 43.9% and 44.3% respectively. This season, for the first time since Opta started compiling such data, there have been fewer than four fouls in the final third per game in the top five leagues – and fewer than 18 fouls per game in any portion of the pitch.

Across the last three seasons in the top five leagues (so 15 separate campaigns), there has been an average of 15.4 direct free kick goals per season – and just the one instance of more than 20 in a season (23 in Serie A in 2021-22). To put into context just how dramatically this aspect of the game has evolved, that’s more than half the average across the first three seasons of the timescale we’re concerned with (33.2). Between those two three-season periods, that’s a massive reduction of 53.6% in the number of free kicks scored in the top five leagues.

https://theanalyst.com/eu/2023/04/free-kicks-why-are-teams-not-shooting-as-much/

 

[Gehrman]

I think its just a lack generational talent. Just like the lack of great strikers. We had Rooney, Torres, Benzema, Aguero, Owen, Drogba, Eto'o, Villa, Ronaldo, Messi, Suarez etc. Now we've gotten used to Lukaku moving for record fees.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

The general tendency at the highest level is towards less and less individual influence (or brilliance, I suppose: at least that is a possible consequence).

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Because nobody dares step up to James Ward Prowse.