Go Endline, Young Man

Byline Service Handcuffs Even The Best

If an attacker can't score, or pass to a teammate who can shoot, a fantastic plan B is to attack the endline at a point as close to the goal as possible.  The USMNT had a plus-7 goal differential in the Hexagonal stage of World Cup qualifying, but even their excellent defense was breached by Panama (photos and video below); we see Tim Krul, a long-serving EPL GK with a very good record beaten by the remarkable partnership of Suarez and Sturridge (being called the "SAS" now, a reference to both the Special Air Service, the British spec ops guys and the former partnership of Chris Sutton and Alan Shearer at Blackburn back in the day); and we see Hugo Lloris gamble and win against Finland in a qualifying game.



In the recent France/Finland match during UEFA qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Hugo Lloris and co. nearly got caught out by enterprising attacking by the Finnish forwards (nearly being the operative word; France were far more efficient and took a 3-0 victory).

Here we see the back 4 (Debuchy/Koscielny/Abidal/Evra) and Lloris a split second after the cross is hit.  Because the Finnish attacker is 5 yards from the goal line and perhaps 16 yards from the center of the field, Lloris has to stay a little closer to his post to defend against the improbable shot.  There's virtually no chance of the wide player scoring from that location, but to assume he wouldn't shoot if Lloris left the front post is reckless.

So Lloris stays home, and is now in a tricky situation.  The cross comes in tantalizingly close, but with enough pace that while Lloris makes a big effort to claim the cross, he misses completely.  At this point, several things have or are going wrong:

Problems:

1. Lloris is now on the ground, and there is really no player between the ball and goal;
2. The ball is still moving on an easily predicted trajectory; Lloris has done nothing to disrupt the attack;
3. Lloris will not be involved with any further action as he is now at the back post and effectively out of the play;
4. Patrice Evra is aware of the attacker behind him, and so he plays the ball over the endline for a corner....the set piece a team like Finland would be banking on for quality chances to score.

High Notes:

1. Debuchy forced the cross to be rushed and kept the attacker from angling in toward goal, instead keeping him moving vertically toward the endline, a much tougher crossing angle;
2. Koscielny has no runner to mark, so he covers the six yard line, ensuring that Lloris can cover up to that point without fear of diving into his own defender, and;
3. Koscielny can cover from 6-9 yards forcing any cross that has a hope of being connected to be played closer to the 18 than the 6- more time for Lloris to defend the shot, more opportunities for the attack to mess up;
4. Abidal and Evra have superior positions relative to the two runners, and while Evra takes no chances and concedes the corner, probably could have let the ball run off the field for a 6 kick.  But he didn't get signed with Man U because he takes stupid risks.

While the sense may be that Lloris messed up here, in reality he played the odds pretty well.  While he must defend the 6 yard area (up to wherever Koscielny sets up shop- something highly organized through training and communication) there are a couple factors in his favor.  If his angles are good, and he times things well, any ball he can't get to, the runners can't either.  Mind you, this was a pretty close call, but the logic held.  Lloris may have whiffed, but the runners missed connecting by an even wider margin.

In truth, the real danger is if Lloris gets a piece of the cross.  The rules are simple, if the GK goes to ground, he has to catch the ball OR make solid enough contact that any parry leaves the ball safely away from the face of the goal and any lurking attackers.  Otherwise, he's on the ground, the ball is in play, and GKs don't make a lot of saves after they leave their feet.

Unless the ball they go to ground for is played with this much pace...exceptions to every rule!

A bit of video to underscore the point.  Skip up to the 55 second mark to see Suarez play a ball to Sturridge for some joy for Liverpool.  See if you can spot the factors that led to Newcastle's demise:

The film shows Tim Krul's aggressive decision to charge down Suarez in a 1v1.  Not a bad choice, really (Sturridge is 1v2 behind him), but Suarez is a gifted player, and stayed cool in the face of the challenge.  It doesn't hurt that he and Sturridge are evidently sharing a brain this season.  Because the N'castle defender is well beaten, as opposed to Debuchy in the France instance, Krul now has to make this even tougher decision; allow Suarez to run at the goal (recall Debuchy blocked the attackers path toward the goal) or treat it like a breakaway and risk being beaten by a shot or a cross.  He opted to challenge Suarez, who took a very unselfish route (!) and played a cross where any of the three players may have bundled the ball into the goal.  Very fine margins at every point of this play...the right back should be under the most scrutiny for allowing Suarez to get behind him.  That's where Krul's hand was forced, and the rest is history.

Lastly, our own Brad Guzan against Panama in one of the most exciting "meaningless" games ever played by the USMNT.  Panama's second goal to take the lead, eliminate Mexico from the World Cup, and blemish the US's otherwise stellar Hexagonal record came from this sort of byline attack:

Guzan stays home, the defender covers the top of the six as he carefully closes down the Panamanian wide player, forcing the cross (rather than trying to beat the defender and running out of room) and Guzan's main job is to protect the channel between himself and the 1st defender (the man closing down the player with the ball):

The wide player hits the cross, and the hard run by the Panama player in the red circle perhaps does just enough to disrupt Guzan's eye-hand coordination (it's amazing how hard it is for a GK to catch a ball while a player runs across his/her field of vision...players with great hands will drop the simplest ball).  A tough job, because he is never going to score for himself...but he does clear space in front of the goal, and may have caused Guzan to hesitate for just a fraction of a second:

Guzan gets both hands on the cross, but does not hold it, nor does he clear it outside the 6 yard area...his center back (yellow arrow) gets a little lazy at the top of the 6...he should have been flying back to cover Guzan, especially given the defenders numerical advantage and good marking up to this point.  The mistakes are mounting up...

There's our lazy ol' center back (yellow circle) just hanging out...Guzan is lying on the ground, no one has recovered to block the goal mouth, and the elder statesman of Panamanian goal scoring, Luis Tejada (red arrow), jumps on the gift for the easiest goal of his long career.

Here's the video, skip to 3.25 for the play pictured above...

Lastly, the North Korean GK shows how much cheating a GK can get away with...while positional training tells us that the closer to the endline the attacker is, the higher off the goal line the GK can step, as the angle to score is so acute.  As with every rule, there are exceptions, and here's a painful example of the exception to this one:

Mind you, in 1993 a book with the image below was published...in addressing crosses, the author doesn't even bother to discuss the areas left blank, namely, anywhere from the edge of the 18 to the front post along the goal line.  Evidently in 1993 no one bothered to cross a ball from those areas?  Perhaps, to be fair, those situations were deemed to advanced for an introductory book on goalkeeping.  Either way, sort of a funny glimpse at how the position has changed: