# Technical-Tactical Analysis of Corner Kicks in Male Soccer: A Systematic Review
## 4 Discussion
### Qualitative Synthesis
#### 4.1.2 Strategies and Tactics  
In football, teams winning a corner usually position 4-5 players in the opponent's penalty area to receive the ball [33]. The most common setup involves placing five attackers [37], although in some countries, placing six players is more prevalent [4]. In the final 30 min of a match, when the score is tied or the attacking team is ahead, they typically position two to five players in the shooting area. Conversely, if the attacking team is trailing, they position six or more players to create shooting opportunities. According to Ref. [6], in most leagues, there is an absence of attacking placement in the goalkeeper's area, except for the English league, where it is more common to place an attacker to intercept the goalkeeper [4]. Generally, one or two attackers are involved in the play, but the involvement of three or four attackers increases the likelihood of a shot on goal [33; 35]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [11] identified several attacking tactics. Particularly, in the \"jellyfish\" strategy, three or four players initially group together outside the six-yard box and then make gradually diverging runs into the penalty area. Variations of this setup include starting from the far corner of the penalty area or having a player move around and behind the cluster, targeting the far post. Another variation involves four players lining up at the far edge of the six-yard box and then running horizontally toward the ball. The \"love train\" formation, made popular by England during the 2018 World Cup, is characterized by players starting in a straight line instead of a cluster. Some teams also adopt a six-yard box overload, where four or five attackers initially crowd the six-yard area. Overall, while offensive setups are predominantly static (67.5%), dynamic attacking movements increase the probability of producing a shot on goal [14; 33]. In the 2015/2016 English Premier League season, the top six teams predominantly employed dynamic attacking movements during corner kick deliveries, while the bottom six teams alternated equally between static and dynamic attacking strategies (\(p<0.001\)) [18]. On the defensive side, teams usually position six or more defenders in the area during a corner kick [4; 33], ensuring numerical superiority over the attackers [14; 21; 33]. When teams that are leading perform the corner kick, the defending teams tend to have fewer players defending the goal [10]. [PERSON] et al. [36] identified six roles for defending team players: player-marking (PM), zonal-marking (ZM), defending a short-corner (SD), marking the near-post (NP) or far-post (FP), defending the back-space (BS), and being positioned for a counterattack (CA). Regarding players positioned at the goalposts, [PERSON] et al. [21] found that teams were most often guarding the near post only (35.7%), followed by no one on the posts (25.1%), far post only (24.2%), and both posts (14.9%). [PERSON] et al. [4] claim that the absence of defenders positioned at the posts is more frequent. Although there was no significant association between different post guard systems and the number of attempts at goal [20; 32], teams that did not place players at the posts conceded more goals [9; 21]. Specifically, for players positioned at the near post, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [20] found that teams placing two players at the near post (one inside the six-yard box and one outside) conceded only one goal from 148 corner kicks (0.7%), whereas the one-zero system conceded eight goals from 159 corner kicks (5.0%). When defending corners, teams use three types of defense: zonal, man marking, and mixed. In some leagues, man marking is more common [4; 32]; in others, zonal marking [4], and in others, a mixed approach [33]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [9] found that teams conceded more goals using a zonal marking strategy (6.0%) compared to a mixed marking strategy (3.7%), while [PERSON] et al. [32] found that teams applying zonal marking conceded fewer goals and fewer attempts at goal than those using one-to-one marking.