Set Pieces football drills

Young players are not allowed to head the ball, so the swung-in corner is pointless. This short routine keeps it on the ground and creates a clear strike.

Defenders cannot mark runs they have not seen. Lining up in single file hides who is going where until the corner is already on its way.

Screening at a corner sits on the edge of what referees allow. The difference between a block and a foul is whether your hands move.

From nineteen metres with a four-man wall. Strike the lower half with sidespin to lift and bend it, or drive it low through the gap instead.

Three seconds after the whistle, a defence is the most disorganised it will be all match. The quick free kick attacks that window.

No wall is allowed, the keeper is ten metres away and the goal is small. This is a penalty with a slightly better save chance.

Four seconds from the ball being still, and the referee counts. A futsal kick-in is not a throw-in with feet, it is a play on a clock.

A wide free kick is a corner with better geometry. Pick the zone, whip it away from the keeper, and time the run to meet it.

Kick-off is the only moment where the ball is still, everyone is placed and nobody can press. Most teams give that away with one kick.

Somewhere between thirty and forty throw-ins happen in a match and most teams rehearse none of them. Throw to feet, open up, cross.

Most corners are cleared. The chance is what happens next, on the edge of the box, and it usually falls to nobody in particular.

The instant the ball leaves his hands the thrower is unmarked. The lay-back exists so the team can use the free player it just created.

Goalkeepers set up to protect what they can get to. Bend an inswinger beyond the near-post crowd and the far post is the space left over.

Walls do not exist to block shots. They make the goal smaller so the keeper only has to defend one half of it, and he sets them.

Sell the direct strike so the keeper sets for it, roll it square to open the angle, and hit it first time around the end of the wall.

Playing short trades a ball into the box for a better angle to deliver from. It only pays if the second action is planned, not hopeful.

Delivered flat and fast to the near post, a long throw is a corner with no offside. Flick it on and gamble on the knockdown.

Pick your corner before you start and do not change it. Consistent run-up, stable plant foot, low and hard inside the post. The percentage ball.