At the recent National Coaching Conference in Sydney, FIFA’s Jean-Michel Benezet made a presentation entitled Trends In Modern Football where he presented an analysis of goals scored in the 2006 World Cup and UEFA Champion’s League tournaments. The results made for interesting reading and provided food for thought for coaches and pundits alike.
The breakdown of goals scored in the two tournaments was identical with 28% of goals coming from set pieces – no surprise there...the ability to produce goal scoring opportunities from corners and attacking free kicks has long been recognised and practised. Of the 78% of goals from open play, 70% of these came from attacks consisting of no more than 3 passes and 90% no more than 6 passes. 40% of goals came as a result of quick breaks with 87% of goals scored with 3 touches or less from the scoring player.
Whilst keeping the football is undoubtedly a critical facet of the modern game with 75% of teams scoring first going on to win the game...the real message for me from this is that to win tournaments at the highest level you need the ability to break at pace....going from one end of the pitch to the other in around 3-4 passes and possess a goal scorer with the composure to finish first time as nearly 50% of goals scored are with the scorer’s first touch of the ball.
Applying this to the first round of games in the Euros you’d have to say the teams excelling at this have been the Netherlands and Spain. Against Italy yesterday, the Dutch scored two decisive goals within seconds of goal scoring opportunities for the opposing team breaking at speed from defensive situations to deliver killer blows at the other end via two long cross field balls in the first instance and in the second via two first time balls inside to two players breaking at speed.
This morning’s game saw Russia torn apart by a hat trick from David Villa who took a grand total of around 7 touches to score his hat trick with his first two goals being first time finishes. All of his goals involved only one other team mate touching the ball within 40 yards of the opposition’s goal.
The question unanswered by the presentation is whether the recent trend towards playing a lone striker in favour of additional bodies in midfield is a tactic to assist in the scoring of break away goals with wide men breaking at speed as a result of coaches studying these statistics or whether the stacking of midfields is actually causing these statistics as it’s much more difficult to break teams down once they’ve got time to regroup defensively resulting in a higher % of goals being scored from quick breaks.
Either way the stats tells us that the team winning Euro 2008 will have to have the ability to break at speed and finish first time so after the first round of games the clever money would be on Spain or the Dutch. However, given both these teams have consistently over promised and under delivered at tournaments in the last 20 years maybe you should keep your hand in your pocket for now. Or just back the Germans.
The other unanswered question is whether at 4.45am in the morning I should just get up and enjoy the game and stop thinking about it so much!
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For those like minded souls the handouts from this presentation and others at the conference are now available to download from the FFA site here
The breakdown of goals scored in the two tournaments was identical with 28% of goals coming from set pieces – no surprise there...the ability to produce goal scoring opportunities from corners and attacking free kicks has long been recognised and practised. Of the 78% of goals from open play, 70% of these came from attacks consisting of no more than 3 passes and 90% no more than 6 passes. 40% of goals came as a result of quick breaks with 87% of goals scored with 3 touches or less from the scoring player.
Whilst keeping the football is undoubtedly a critical facet of the modern game with 75% of teams scoring first going on to win the game...the real message for me from this is that to win tournaments at the highest level you need the ability to break at pace....going from one end of the pitch to the other in around 3-4 passes and possess a goal scorer with the composure to finish first time as nearly 50% of goals scored are with the scorer’s first touch of the ball.
Applying this to the first round of games in the Euros you’d have to say the teams excelling at this have been the Netherlands and Spain. Against Italy yesterday, the Dutch scored two decisive goals within seconds of goal scoring opportunities for the opposing team breaking at speed from defensive situations to deliver killer blows at the other end via two long cross field balls in the first instance and in the second via two first time balls inside to two players breaking at speed.
This morning’s game saw Russia torn apart by a hat trick from David Villa who took a grand total of around 7 touches to score his hat trick with his first two goals being first time finishes. All of his goals involved only one other team mate touching the ball within 40 yards of the opposition’s goal.
The question unanswered by the presentation is whether the recent trend towards playing a lone striker in favour of additional bodies in midfield is a tactic to assist in the scoring of break away goals with wide men breaking at speed as a result of coaches studying these statistics or whether the stacking of midfields is actually causing these statistics as it’s much more difficult to break teams down once they’ve got time to regroup defensively resulting in a higher % of goals being scored from quick breaks.
Either way the stats tells us that the team winning Euro 2008 will have to have the ability to break at speed and finish first time so after the first round of games the clever money would be on Spain or the Dutch. However, given both these teams have consistently over promised and under delivered at tournaments in the last 20 years maybe you should keep your hand in your pocket for now. Or just back the Germans.
The other unanswered question is whether at 4.45am in the morning I should just get up and enjoy the game and stop thinking about it so much!
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For those like minded souls the handouts from this presentation and others at the conference are now available to download from the FFA site here
