Should goal kicks and long balls be abandoned?
Are goal-kicks and long balls useless exercises? At the outset, my apologies for this rather serious post. But it is football season, and I find it deeply disconcerting to see goalkeepers repeatedly kick the ball aimlessly in the general direction of the other half of the pitch. Don’t they know that the opposition is as likely to take control of the ball as a teammate? Granted that possession is lost far away from the danger zone, but isn’t retaining possession important for winning? Given the amount of money riding on football teams, why isn’t someone doing something about this? Or perhaps I have got this completely wrong? If only to feel less uncomfortable, considering the number of goal kicks and long balls one has to watch during the world cup, I set out to try and understand this phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, some others have had doubts about the utility of the goal kick as well. One very theoretical analysis, based on data from the American Major League Soccer 2016 season,...