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The Specialist: The Corner Kick

January 31st, 2009 | By: Jan | 18 Comments »

David Beckham takes his corner kick

The Theory:
The corner kick is a method to get the ball back into play, after the ball passed the goal line (but not in the goal ) and was last touched by the defending team. One can score directly out of a corner kick.

The Procedure:
The ball needs to be within the quarter circle at the cornerflag. The ball needs to be placed at the side where the ball passed the goal line at the closest. Opponents need to stay 9.15 meters from the ball. The player taking the kick can only touch the ball after another player touched it.

The Big Trick
In China, a player put the ball in the quarter circle but left it there, after having touched it subtly with the sole of his foot. Another player came jogging to the corner flag, as if they decided at the last moment that he would take the kick. The ignorant opponent kept on organizing their defensive positions, but the player who casually jogged to the ball suddenly picked it up and quickly dribbled to the edge of the box. The opponents were flabbergasted and started to wave their arms to the ref. The cross was given, the goal was scored. And allowed. Some say this is unsportsmanlike, but the rules weren’t broken. AS Roma had heard about the trick and tried to do it against AC Milan. Roma scored but the ref hadn’t been paying attention and decided to cancel the goal. He still doesn’t know why exactly…

Among the greatest corner kickers, we had Brazilian Eder, who would easily kick them straight – well, not literally – at goal… There’s specialist David Beckham of course and in Holland John van ‘t Schip was among the greats.

Eder, the greatest of them all…

The History
Theo Janssen, formerly of Vitesse now of FC Twente (and made famous by Marco van Basten who said he’d rather use Janssen in Oranje that Clarence Seedorf) scored regular direct goals from corner kicks in the youth competitions. “That was easy. Goalies were shorter than and our goal was placed at an angle. Just enough for me to benefit from that.” Janssen was always the man of the setpieces. At Vitesse, he took the corners at the left and right side. Now, at Twente, he takes the kicks from the right with his golden left foot, while Kenneth Perez takes them from the left. “These days, balls that curve inwards are easy to defend by good goalies. I remember playing against PSV with Vitesse, when Gomes was their goalie, and he would easily field my balls from the left.”
Historically speaking, Dutch corner kicks were always amongst the worst in international football. It seemed like we never really trained on them and in the days of De Boer/Seedorf/Davids/Bergkamp it really seemed like corner kicks were wasted opportunities. With more and more players going abroad in the 1990s, it seemed better corner kicks were taken.

The Technique
There’s many different ways to take it, although most corner kicks are hit with the inside foot, curling the ball into the box. Variances are: the low drive, hoping for a touch. The high drive with the front foot, aiming for the near post or the wide corner kicks aiming for the distant volley from a marksman.
Wim Kieft – ex Ajax and ex PSV – was known to enjoy the drives to the first post: “We’d train on that hours and hours on end. I’d come in at the right time, in front of my marker, to surprise the goalie. It’s hard to defend for both the defensive fieldplayers as it is for the goalie.”
Then there’s the so-called short corner, where a player kicks the ball over a short distance to a mate who either dribbles back into the field, or crosses the ball in allowing for more curve. Portuguese player Maniche scored like this against Holland in 2004.

“You need more feeling than when you kick a free kick,” Janssen says. “Free kicks need more speed, you can hit them harder, particularly when you go for goal. With corners, you want to present them perfectly to your team mate and you do have to vary your kicks. Some goalies don’t like crosses, so you put them on the spot. In other cases, you want the ball to stay away from the goalie.”
Janssen admits that in Holland there’s not enough training dedicated to corner kicks. “Players always hang around for half an hour to practice free kicks, but corners, no… That is weird, yeah. We used to call them half goals when we were young. And it’s so good to see how Robin van Persie’s corner kicks have improved now he plays in England. In the EPL you can see how dangerous corner kicks can be.”

Players still score in one go, albeit pretty rare. Recently, players like Marco Bresciano, Marco Bassler, Nakamura and Veron found the net like this. It’s called an Olympic Goal, by the way, because the first official direct goal from a corner was recorded at the Olympics in 1924 between Argentina and Uruguay.

Man U does it as well here, and the goal is disallowed. Check out the replay…

Tags: AC Milan, Gomes, Group C, Janssen, Kieft, Maniche, Roma, van Persie

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Comments

By finnster01 | January 31st, 2009 at 6:43 am

Here is one of my all time favorites. England – Macedonia. The chap scores directly from the corner. It’s a real beauty too. I love Ericsson’s face as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYN0fBYR0Qw

By Alex | January 31st, 2009 at 9:32 am

I heard De Jong made quite the impression in his debute for Manchester City. They say together with Ireland he controlled the midfield very good. That seems to be good news. He doesn’t seem to have any real problems adjusting to PL from this game, but let’s wait and see.

Posted from Netherlands

By finnster01 | January 31st, 2009 at 9:40 am

De Jong’s only problem is lack of match fitness. He was subbed in the 70th minute in his first match, but indeed played very well and Mark Hughes gave both him and Bellamy very high marks.

I haven’t watched the Stoke match so can’t tell how he’s played today. He was in the starting lineup. Last time I checked they were losing 1-0 though.

By finnster01 | January 31st, 2009 at 9:43 am

That’s interesting. Wenger sits Van Persie on the bench!!! Benching your best and inform player doesn’t make sense to me when they need every point to have a shot at CL. Oh well, no skin of my nose, go ‘pool!!!

By sonneveld | January 31st, 2009 at 12:56 pm

Wenger recently said that the team cannot over relly on him because they have champions league and cups going on aswell. The 0-0 tie proved that they need him.

Im going to read between the lines a little bit here. Zabaleta, De Jongs midfield holding partner was subbed off before De Jong. This may mean that Hughes rates De Jong higher. BTW De Jong was subbed because stoke only had 10 players and were just trying to tie the game.

By Brian | January 31st, 2009 at 2:11 pm

VDS has beaten the English record for not conceeding a League goal. Great headline on the BBC: “Edwin van der Sar has beaten Death”

1905: It’s official. The 72 minutes are up and Edwin van der Sar has beaten Death. The United keeper reaches 1,104 minutes without conceding a league goal, beating the previous mark set by Reading’s Steve Death in 1979.

Posted from United Kingdom

By sonneveld | January 31st, 2009 at 5:16 pm

2-0 madrid

im just been reading and robben was influential for the first and scored a nice second goal, he just keeps on scoring.

By sonneveld | January 31st, 2009 at 5:37 pm

huntelaar, van der vaart and sneijder are all on now its the 76th minute, LETS HOPE THEY SCORE! End the tough runs for all of them

By Felipe | January 31st, 2009 at 6:32 pm

Ajax lost 1-0 to Heerenveen in Amsterdam Arena… is Eredivisie a closed case for AZ, this season?

By Van Basten | January 31st, 2009 at 8:29 pm

It’s interesting how currently no Dutch player has generated so much as Robben has. Being compared constantly to Messi and football fanatics all over the globe arguing about the two. Its great for Netherlands! Amidst the abysmal performance of the Real players today, Robben created the first game, and put the game away by yet again scoring. He is so critically important that he was subbed…but of course he has light years of improvement ahead of him in order to be part of the legendary hall of fame of great football players.

By Michel-Olivier(Slider) | January 31st, 2009 at 9:13 pm

when was the last time man of glass was injured?

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier(Slider) | January 31st, 2009 at 9:15 pm

next year robben will bring the wc to orange land
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-PoroqJp5g&feature=related

Posted from United States

By Carlos | January 31st, 2009 at 11:33 pm

By the way a few games ago – ManU did the same corner trick with Rooney faking for Giggs to take the corner and lightly tapping it. Giggs played on with it, but the ref called him back. My personal view – let it go, it’s a trick just like Cruyff’s funny penalty, but it’s no worse than those fakers falling over injured-then playing on as if nothing happened to their legs. Opposing team – heads up ! Just like a Free Kick, take it quick or wait for the wall.
Edwin has the record !!
Robben – King Again !

Posted from Singapore

By Tomek | February 1st, 2009 at 4:21 am

And Robben scores again, showing that he truly is the best Dutch player right now.

Posted from Netherlands

By Alex | February 1st, 2009 at 12:01 pm

@ sonneveld
correction, Sneijder was in the starting line-up. V.d.Vaart and Huntelaar came in. I think we will be seeing 1 or 2 dutchmen leaving Real pretty soon. I reckon Sneijder and Robben defenitaly won’t leave for a while. With Huntelaar, V.d.Vaart and Drenthe it could go either way

BTW I’m interested to see what Heitinga did with Atletico.

Posted from Netherlands

By Caleb | February 2nd, 2009 at 12:59 pm

@Finnster – it makes sense because Van Persie is Arsenal’s most important player – they can’t risk him becoming injured again (like most of last season). He already played twice in the previous week, EPL and FA Cup, so I’m assuming that’s why Wenger kept him on the bench. Too bad Arsenal looked so impotent up front – not that they played that poorly, because they actually controlled most of the game and finally showed their passing ability again (after looking terrible for a while now), but they just couldn’t do it up front.

Posted from Canada

By finnster01 | February 2nd, 2009 at 4:51 pm

@Caleb: I guess that is the other way to look at it, but when you are no longer part of the big 4 in the league and CL spots and only are looking at a UEFA spot, I would have thought that sitting your best player is not an option. I know I wouldn’t. I’d sit him in the FA Cup all right or aginst a bottom 3 side. Not a UEFA contender. Big mistake on the Arse part, but Wenger just wants to run his kindergarten which is fine by me. Go ‘pool!!

By Caleb | February 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm

@Finnster – I agree with you, I would have sat him in the FA cup and played him on the weekend. Guess Wenger really wants some sort of silverware this season, and the FA cup is probably his best chance. I still think Arsenal will get back in the top 4 by the end of the season though.

Posted from Canada

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