Analysis of the corner kick in football in the main European leagues during the 2017-2018 season
Iván Prieto-Lage, Diego Bermúdez-Fernández, Adrián Paramés-González, Alfonso Gutiérrez-Santiago
Abstract
The actions of the set-piece are decisive in the score. The corner is the most effective. The object of the study was to describe, analyse and compare the offence’s corners that were made in the six main European leagues during the 17/18 season (2132 matches). The 351 corners that met the selected criteria were analysed through a descriptive and association analysis with IBM-SPSS v.20.0 with a significance level of p < 0.05. In general, the direct corners were more frequent than the indirect. The common pattern in the direct corners comprised sending the ball with a mid-depth distance and a direct header into the goal. In indirect corners, sending the ball with short-depth, head extension and subsequent shot directly to the goal was a common pattern. There are differences among the European leagues. At the same time, characteristics and transversal patterns have been observed allowing the successful corners sent to the area without defence rejections to be detected.