Kick offs

Watching Scotland’s performance on Sportscene the other night got me thinking. Have a look at the difference between us and the Portuguese at kick off time - Scotland took a short pass and lumped a diagonal ball forward to runners who were always second-best. Portugal took kick off backwards and knocked it about amongst their defenders, giving them all a touch of the ball.

I’ve seen loads of teams in this country do the thing Scotland did (which looks more like a rugby kickoff!), but it always looks gash and hands the ball to the opposition. Hibs do it too reasonably often.

Why?

Happened a lot last season ball back to McGinn who hoofed the ball to the right in most cases went out for a throw in.

Decent chance of winning the ball back high up the park from the throw in

Pretty sure Leicester did this when they win the league

Seen Sam Allardice explaining this once. It's a stats based tactic. In simple terms the team who makes the first forward pass (i.e. Straight from kick off statistically scores the first goal) it was something like 62% - 38% or something.

Edit - I'm now recalling him saying that from the restart of it's a throw-in you've the first chance of winnings a second ball high up the park and the team that wins the first one statistically wins more.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by leithsansiro

Watching Scotland’s performance on Sportscene the other night got me thinking. Have a look at the difference between us and the Portuguese at kick off time - Scotland took a short pass and lumped a diagonal ball forward to runners who were always second-best. Portugal took kick off backwards and knocked it about amongst their defenders, giving them all a touch of the ball.

I’ve seen loads of teams in this country do the thing Scotland did (which looks more like a rugby kickoff!), but it always looks gash and hands the ball to the opposition. Hibs do it too reasonably often.

Why?

---

Because Scottish players typically dont have the required skillset?