The Kick-Off: The Forgotten Set Piece

Matchday -1 for most teams typically represents a training session where specific patterns of play are highlighted in both the attacking and defensive phases. It is also likely a session where the team will prepare their set pieces. This traditionally includes corners and free kicks. In more recent years it is clear that an increasingly large emphasis has been placed upon the throw-in, too. Dane Thomas Grønnemark has worked with a lot of top clubs in developing their throw-in principles in the hope that it can be turned into an offensive weapon. Previously, it was perhaps undervalued by most and not representative of a situation that could be fruitful in terms of attacking. But the throw in provides a unique situation, with rules that are separated from the rest of the game and as such, it should be treated as a novel event in which an advantage is still there to be gained. This is no different to a corner or a free kick. There are very specific things about these moments which detach them from the rest of the game and they therefore require detailed preparation. A set piece that I haven’t mentioned already, but again provides a novel situation, is the kick-off. The game picture that the kick-off situation creates is completely unique. There is never a situation in open play of a football match where all 11 players from the opposition stand between the ball and their goal, whilst all of yours remain on the opposite side. But this set piece is traditionally ignored, downplayed and undervalued. Perhaps understandable when you think of how few teams get them, ironically the better at football you are, the less you get to take. However, it still provides a unique game picture and when the game of football is as low scoring as it is, every single opportunity represents a chance to create something and therefore I believe it should be given more respect.

My interest in the kick-off spiked watching Bournemouth. 2 years ago they scored a goal which would earn them a point v Fulham, directly from a kick-off situation. Last season they did the same thing, this time against Arsenal in a 3-2 loss. Both are from very different types of kick-off’s but both were devastatingly effective. Their goal v Fulham, which can be seen below, is a smart routine that uses short passes to encourage the opposition’s defensive line to push higher, whilst having runners from deep going the opposite way. This has been replicated by many other teams, including successfully by PSG.

(See from 38 seconds)

The more recent goal v Arsenal however, used an overload to isolate technique. Bournemouth loaded one side of the field with five players, and had the taker of the kick-off even face his body that way. This left a lot of space on the opposite side for a Bournemouth player to create a 1v1 in the wide channel inside FIVE seconds. Three seconds later and Bournemouth have created a box situation, with 3 attackers vs. 4 defenders. Yes there is a fortuitous element to the way Philip Billing receives the ball but it is a genius sequence which caused Arsenal so many issues.

I was quite curious as to why occasions like this don’t happen more often. Why there aren’t more teams using routines like this to try and create something immediately. So I decided to take a look at as many Toppserien (Senior Women’s Tier 1 in Norway) matches as I could and understand what teams were doing from kick-off. I decided to only analyse kick-off’s from the start of each half as opposed to all kick-off’s, following goals. This is because of the emotional constraints which are at play immediately following a goal. Teams are likely to be shaken following the conceding of a goal and depending upon the time of the game, this may influence their decision on what they do with the kick-off. For example, many teams may try to take the sting out of the game by playing short and keeping the ball for a period of time, especially away from home.

I watched 206 kick-off’s from 103 matches from Toppserien 2023. I categorised the outcome after 10 seconds of a team’s kick-off into a Great, Good, OK or Poor outcome. To the right are all the outcomes I used. It is of course up for debate in why Established Attack is Good and not Great, and why a throw in the opposition half is  OK and not Good, but this is my preference at least, based on what I think of the game and how I would want my team to play. It is also worth mentioning here what mellomrom and siderom are, as these are terms we use in Norway to describe attacking spaces. Below is a visual to demonstrate.

My initial analysis showed that there appeared to be three main categories for types of kick-off. These are:

• Long: This type of kick-off is characterised by an immediate long pass, usually into the siderom area of the field, where they tended to have many players following in. It could be into a duel situation or straight into a defensive player. The key here was how the attacking team set up around the long ball to win the second ball.

• Short: This type of kick-off is characterised by no efforts to move the ball forwards quickly but rather to set into a rhythm by using a short passing game. It was commonly used via a pass back to a player in a central midfield position, then to the defensive line. From here it was very typical that the team then just settled into an established attack.

• Routine: This type of kick-off is characterised by anything that did not fall into the two categories above. Throughout the analysis it seemed like most of these were pre-planned moves, hence the name. It is possible however, that some are not pre-planned routines but without speaking to each coach, it is impossible to know.

Category Frequency and Outcomes

Above is a visual to demonstrate how often Toppserien teams used the different kick-off types, and the consequent outcome. This data shows how doing something a little different, perhaps to catch out the opposition, has the highest chance of a Great outcome. A short kick-off will lead to a Good outcome more than half of the time, whereas a Long kick-off will lead to a Poor outcome more than half of the time. Initially, it appears that a Long kick-off is not worth it. It is worth noting here though, that only one goal was scored from the 206 kick-off’s I analysed and it was the result of a long kick-off. The data shows that a Short kick-off is quite low-risk, with only 29% leading to Poor outcomes and the largest percent of Good outcomes of all three categories. A routine kick-off has a slightly higher Poor outcome rate at 38% but has the significantly largest number of Great outcomes. These numbers shed some light on how successful the different kick-off types are. But I wanted to further my understanding. I wanted to know:

1. What do the best teams do?

2. What do the most successful team at kick-off’s do?

3. Based on the evidence, what is the best kick-off strategy and why?

What do the best teams do?

To answer this question, I separated the kick-off’s of the Top 4 teams in Toppserien, and compared them with the Bottom 6 teams. The results are presented below.   

It is immediately clear that the Top 4 teams use significantly more short kick-off’s than the Bottom 6 teams, almost three times as many in fact. Inevitably then, the Bottom 6 clubs use three times more long kick-off’s than the Top 4 as well as over five times the amount of routines. At face value, this data actually makes sense. The Top 4 are typically better football teams than the Bottom 6 and therefore would naturally trust in their own abilities with the ball, more. Therefore, they are happy to play short and set up an established attack. Whereas the Bottom 6 clubs, knowing they are inferior football teams, use slightly different tactics such as Long and Routine, which despite their higher frequency of Poor outcomes, also carry a larger chance of a Great outcome. The Bottom 6 clubs are viewing the kick-off as more of an opportunity to try and create something which may result in a goal. It was in fact a Bottom 6 club which scored the only goal from a kick-off in the analysis (Røa scoring v Lyn). There were outliers to the data however. Rosenborg, a Top 4 club, used a short kick-off tactic 100% of the time. Similarly, Lyn and Arna-Bjørnar, both Bottom 6 clubs, both used a short kick-off tactic well above the Bottom 6 average (76%).

I was also interested in the efficiency of kick-off tactics used by the Top 4 vs. the Bottom 6 clubs. We know how often each of these groups use each kick-off, but how often are they actually successful?

There is a lot of data to process above. It is not too useful to just describe each dataset, rather, it is more effective to list some quick facts that the data gives us.

• Bottom 6 teams get almost 50% more Great outcomes than Top 4 teams.

• Top 4 teams get over 200% more Good outcomes than Bottom 6 teams.

• Bottom 6 teams get almost double the number of Poor outcomes than Top 4 teams.

• Top 4 teams are much more effective from short kick-off’s than Bottom 6 teams, with only 21% Poor outcomes for the Top 4 compared to 40% for the Bottom 6.

• If you remove the Top 4 teams’ routine kick-off’s (due to a very small sample size - 4), the most effective kick-off type by category of teams, was Routine kick-off’s by the Bottom 6 teams.

• Using a long kick-off tactic produced almost exactly the same amount of Poor outcomes for both Top 4 teams and Bottom 6 teams (55%/56%).

The data here seems to suggest that the tactic I described earlier for both the Top 4 clubs and the Bottom 6 clubs are worthwhile. The Top 4 clubs trust their abilities more on the ball so therefore choose to play short more often than not. And this has proved largely successful for them, with 69% Great or Good outcomes. It appears to be low risk, low reward. Low reward in that the majority of outcomes they are achieving are not going to lead to them scoring a goal immediately. And the Bottom 6 clubs tend to try something a little more adventurous and again, this is proven a worthwhile tactic. They achieved a much larger percentage of Poor outcomes and a percentage of less than half for Good outcomes but at the same time, achieved the most Great outcomes. It appears to be somewhat high risk (due to the Poor outcome at almost 50%) but also high reward.

What do the most successful team at kick-off’s do?

Statistically, Avaldsnes were the most effective team from kick-off’s. They amassed the highest number of Great outcomes from the 2023 Toppserien season. Below is a diagram to demonstrate the type’s of kick-off they used. Almost three quarters of the time they used something which was outside the typical long and short category. I will explain what this is shortly but one of the most interesting things here is Avaldsnes’ final league position in the 2023 table. They finished 9th out of a possible 10, only avoiding relegation by one goal in the relegation play off (3-2 aggregate win v Tromsø). It appears that Avaldsnes recognised their footballing inferiority, reflected by the final league table, and decided to use a kick-off routine which might help them create a situation which could lead to a goal. They recognise that in a typical match they were going to be the underdogs and therefore see the kick-off situation as a viable situation to create an opportunity.

The routine was very similar each time they used it and really all it was, was a hybrid of a long and short kick-off. They take some elements of both categories and use it to their advantage. A typical long kick-off is shown below. It involves a long kick as quickly as possible, often on to one side of the field. If the player has the range, it can often be right onto the full back. This is followed up by an asymmetrical team shape chasing the ball down. The full back is forced into a decision, sometimes a duel. Does the full back clear it out of play? Do they bring it down and play? Do they try just clear it back up field but risk the second ball dropping to an opponent? An example is shown below. The benefit of this approach is that there is going to be a chaos type situation where the ball could drop to the feet of an onrushing attacker who then finds himself in a favourable situation. It is also quite common to win a throw in the opposition half after this situation. The drawback of this situation is that the opponent can easily set up to defend this and by sheer numbers, decrease the chances of anything happening. If a loose ball is going to drop somewhere, because the opposition will have more players around it in a more concentrated space, they are most likely to pick it up. This explains why the long tactic has the highest Poor outcome percentage.

A short kick-off aims to establish the attack somewhere in your own half. It will often involve going back to the first line of attack and sometimes even the goalkeeper, if necessary. A typical opponent response to this, is for them to push up and stay as a compact defensive unit, aiming to set up their established defence shape and look for moments to press to steal. An example of this can be seen below. The advantage of this approach is that you get to dictate how the game immediately develops with real control. There are real psychological benefits here, for players to get ball contact time and build confidence. It may also be viewed as a benefit because the opponents can be attracted towards the opposition goal, leaving a lot of space to exploit in behind. A disadvantage however, is the fact that 11 opponents remain between the ball and the goal. If the team do not possess the ability to open a team up and access the key spaces of the field (e.g. framrom, mellomrom, siderom & bakrom) then this is not a favourable situation. Avaldsnes clearly do not feel that they are going to be especially efficient from here.

Below is an example of what Avaldsnes have done with their routine kick-off. They used between two and four passes initially from the kick-off. This brought out the first and often second, line of defensive pressure. They anticipated a short kick-off and therefore wanted to establish defensively, as high as possible. At the same time though, two or three Avaldsnes players sprinted high up. The opponent’s defensive line usually then responded in the opposite way to their midfield and forward line, by dropping off. They anticipated an immediate long pass because of the onrushing attackers. This then created huge spaces between the opposition players. The key spaces I referred to a second ago became much more exaggerated. When Avaldsnes decided the opposition team was disrupted enough, they went long. The key part though, was the Avaldsnes midfielders. The two or three players that sprinted forwards immediately, rarely won the ball. It was often the midfielders, who positioned themselves in the exaggerated key spaces to pick up the second balls when it inevitably came back. Avaldsnes wanted to turn the kick off moment into a situation of similar numbers, around the back line of the opposition, in massive spaces. In a worst case scenario, they still had five outfielders behind the ball plus recovering players.

Below are the numbers and efficiency from Avaldsnes’ kick-off’s. Long and short are small sample numbers so can be disregarded. But note the routine kick-off’s and their record of a Great outcome in every four kick-off’s. As well as this, they also achieved five ‘Chaos duel moments’ which were under the OK outcome category. Chaos duel moments was a way of quantifying any kick-off that did not have an outcome after 10 seconds. Essentially, the ball was still pinballing around. This situation would not be favourable for many coaches as the outcome can be very random. But again, for the team considered 9th best out of ten, this may represent exactly the type of situation they want. When randomness and chance is removed, Avaldsnes know they are going to be worse than almost every team. So any method of adding chance to the mix could be beneficial. If this was the plan for their team, it could be possible to say they got even more Good outcomes than I had measured. It is interesting that Avaldsnes used almost the same routine in each game but opponent’s kept falling for the trap. It perhaps highlights the lack of importance attributed to this moment of the game by coaches and a consequent lack of analysis into it.

Based on the evidence, what is the best kick-off strategy and why?

In the beginning of this piece I wrote that a kick-off:

“provides a unique game picture and when the game of football is as low scoring as it is, every single opportunity represents a chance to create something and therefore I believe it should be given more respect.”

The idea of ‘creating something’, as the analysis has shown, is unique to each team. There is no best kick-off strategy. Rather, each coach should consider how they can best use the kick-off to create something which is going to contribute to a game picture they want, based on the type of team that they are. Whether the team is one of the worst on paper, such as Avaldsnes, or perhaps the best team to control matches, such as Rosenborg. Rosenborg played every single kick-off short and looked to establish their attack in a patient way, always. Their game model is certainly based around controlling possession and in doing so, controlling the flow of the match. Rosenborg averaged 2.1 goals scored per game and 0.56 conceded. This is the largest difference between average scored and conceded in the division. Establishing attacks is likely exactly what Rosenborg want, to allow them to assert that control in the match from as early as possible. Inevitably, it is different for teams lower down the division, such as Avaldsnes. Therefore, the first principle is to design your kick-off tactic around the team you have, which is not exactly revolutionary advice. This is the essence of coaching.

Another principle which I think runs somewhat implicitly throughout this piece, and is consistently displayed in teams who achieve the most Great outcomes from kick-off’s, is that of deception. This can be applied at an individual and collective level. Going back to the first Bournemouth goal I highlighted earlier, short passing straight from the kick-off attracts the opposing players to the ball. The backline stays relatively high and flat because they anticipate this short passing game will turn into an established attack, as is so typical. But then Dominic Solanke comes sprinting through to catch the Fulham defenders on their toes, unprepared for the strange situation unfolding in front of them. The Bournemouth goal v Arsenal also used great deception too. Everything about Bournemouth’s set up suggested a long kick-off tactic to the overload side. Arsenal then set up to defend that situation, as any team would. A quick change of direction at the last second set up a 1v1, 10 seconds later and it is 1-0. Everything about that move was disguised - even the starting body shape of the player who takes the kick. This takes us on to the Avaldsnes routine kick-off. A key reason to their success was the level of deception they used. The runners high up to have the backline predict a long kick-off and stay deep, the short passes to invite the forward and midfield line up to press. Deception is another key principle which I think all teams should look to utilise. It does not need to be something as drastic as what Bournemouth/Avaldsnes did, but anything to create imbalance in the opposition is worth doing. Even if a team does not capitalise on the imbalance that is created in the opposition, it is still a great tool to use early on, to create uncertainty in the opposition defensive structure. How deception can be used to create imbalance is where the coach can use creativity. This is where the kick-off could be viewed as an exciting opportunity and not just an unimportant formality.