The near-post corner kick: a new way to create scoring chances.

Many soccer teams have a standard way of playing the ball into the penalty area on corner kicks. They have several players run into the area with the hope of getting a touch on the ball and directing it toward the goal.

The results aren't always productive. Up to recently, the practice has been to direct the ball to the far post. When this stopped working, a lot of the higher level teams began playing the ball to the near post and wound up creating better scoring opportunities.

With the high level of defense and goalkeeping, however, the offense has been forced to do more than just kick the ball toward the near post and hope it creates something good.

At Butler, we have developed a special kind of play to the near post.

We understood, of course, that to have a successful near-post corner kick, the kick itself had to be extremely accurate. The ball had to ravel roughly 35 to 40 yards to a point within 2 to 3 yards of the goalpost and roughly 5 to 8 feet in the air.

This can be difficult, and we work at it with a special drill. We secure a hula hoop or a bicycle tire to the front of the goal and have our corner kickers try to put the ball through the hole or close to it. About 15 to 20 shots a day will work wonders for the kickers' accuracy.

The critical spot is the near post. It is important to deploy a big, strong player at that spot, one who can flick the ball toward the back post for teammates to run into.

Since the defense will often set a player at the near post, especially if you have one there, the bigger or taller your player, the better. We like to put two of our people at the near post. (Players C and B in the diagram.) When our corner kicker (A) raises his hand, one of our players (B, in the diagram) will run toward A as if to play a short kick. The idea is to lure a defender away from the near post.

Most goalkeepers, on corner kicks, will stand roughly in the middle of the goal or two-thirds of the way back toward the far post. By corner-kicking to the near post, we force the keeper to decide whether he can get there fast enough to catch the ball. If the keeper tries this and misses, he will leave the entire goal exposed.

We like to make it even more difficult for the keeper by putting a player (D) in the goal mouth - making sure to caution him to go for the ball rather than to obstruct the path of the keeper.

We have also had success in running D out toward A (the way B did originally) in the hope of drawing a defender away and creating some space for E to run and score. Note: F and G are responsible for the ball once it is flicked to the far post.

The near-post corner kick is more successful than the more common far-post kick for a number of reasons:

First, since the ball must be kicked higher to get to the far post, this will give the defenders and goalkeeper time to get under the ball and be in good position. With the ball coming to the near post at a high rate of speed, it is extremely difficult to defend against.

Second, if the defenders are drawn to the near post, any mistakes they make will leave space in front of the goal.

Third, once the defense gets used to you playing the ball to the near post, they will begin creating more room for you to play the ball to the far post.

George Van Linder Assistant Soccer Coach Butler University (IN)