A throw-in occurs when, instead of the full-back being taken to the foot of a nearby teammate, the ball is played into the opponent’s area, as in a corner. The word, then, is the combination of a throw-in and a corner. The “lunch” of football.
It’s an ugly move. The ball comes slowly, without effect, from above, and whoever heads it generally does so backwards. Despite this, it is increasingly used.
It happened once per game in 2014 and, in this World Cup, it has already happened twice. The same trend appears in the English Championship, the main league in the world, where it has almost tripled in the last two seasons.
But, aesthetics aside, is lateraling useful?
To answer, we need a basis for comparison: the full-back taken in the usual way, to a teammate’s foot. But we can’t put all full-backs on this scale, since not every shot has the potential to become a throw-in, only those close to the opponent’s area.
Therefore, our parameter is the common laterals taken in the last 35 meters of the field.
In the last four World Cups, there are just over 330 full-backs compared to almost 3,000 regular full-backs.
With these two groups, the first question we ask is whether the full-back keeps possession of the ball. Does not maintain. An ordinary full-back finds a teammate in almost nine out of ten shots. The side, in less than half. But the disadvantage stops there.
Considering the 15 seconds (average time of a play) after the kick, there are 73 cases of finishing from the throw-in — 20% of the time, almost three times more than a common throw-in (7%).
As for goals, although the sample is small, history repeats itself: an advantage of around four and a half times (1.49% versus 0.34%) in relation to the common full-back.
In the end, losing possession of the ball doesn’t count as much, as keeping it is not the plan: the winger shines in the confusion. He wants the ball to bounce into the opponent’s area in a back and forth of headers, rebounds and deflections from both teams, until it lands cleanly for a shot.
The mess planned by the move becomes clear when analyzing the five goals of the period. Only two are “clean”, in which possession of the ball remains with the attacking team. There is an own goal and two others in which the ball rebounds into the area, comes back, becomes a cross with the foot and finds the head of a teammate.
In short, the name is ugly and the move is ugly, but “the center forward lives on”.
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