{"id":781547,"date":"2026-02-28T06:18:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T06:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/781547\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T06:18:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T06:18:38","slug":"why-dont-more-football-teams-place-players-on-the-side-of-the-box-for-penalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/781547\/","title":{"rendered":"Why don\u2019t more football teams place players on the side of the box for penalties?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Arsenal Women won the inaugural Women\u2019s Champions Cup at the Emirates last month with a 3-2 victory over South American champions Corinthians, many commented that the South American side brought something different in the stands.<\/p>\n

They brought drums, they brought melodic chants, they brought a proper party atmosphere. Their team brought something different on the pitch, too \u2014 albeit something rather subtle.<\/p>\n

When Victoria Albuquerque stepped up to score a 96th-minute penalty and send the game into extra time, Corinthians positioned two players in unusual positions: outside the width of the box, rather \u201cin front\u201d of it.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

In truth, they didn\u2019t seem particularly \u2018active\u2019 here. They were practically just praying the penalty would be scored. And it was. But it prompted an interesting question: why don\u2019t more teams put players out wide in these situations?<\/p>\n

Almost every other teams\u2019 players gather around the front of the box, close to the \u2018D\u2019, rather than at the sides. But not Corinthians. They retain a commitment to putting players in those positions, which seems to confuse both the referee and the opposition. Here, when they had a penalty against Sao Paulo, not merely did the referee seem troubled by the idea of a player standing behind her\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\u2026 one of the Sao Paulo defenders belatedly tip-toed around the perimeter of the box, and into a position where she could mark one of the attackers positioned out wide.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

And Corinthians also do this when the opposition are taking a penalty, although it seems to encourage the opposition to put players there themselves. In fairness, there is evidence of other teams in the Brasileirao Feminino using the same strategy, although little sign of it for the men\u2019s teams at the equivalent clubs.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

So why not?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth clarifying precisely where players are allowed to\u00a0stand at penalties. There are four restrictions. They must stand on the pitch. They must be outside the penalty area. They must be 10 yards from the penalty spot (which is, of course, why the \u2018D\u2019 exists) and they must also be behind the penalty spot. But they don\u2019t have to be behind the penalty area itself \u2014 they can be to the side of it. And all this requires some mathematical fact-finding.<\/p>\n

The first question is simple. If a player places themselves in what we shall call \u2018the Corinthians position\u2019, how close can they stand to the goal?<\/p>\n

Well, if they\u2019re in line with the penalty spot, they are 12 yards from the byline. The distance from the post to the side of the penalty box is 18 yards, the same as the length of the penalty box.<\/p>\n

Using Pythagoras\u2019 Theorem \u2014 and putting the \u2018soccer\u2019 into SOH-CAH-TOA \u2014 we can calculate the distance from that position to the nearest post. 18\u00b2 is 324, and 12\u00b2 is 144. Add them together and you get 468. And the square root of 468 is\u2026 21.6 yards.<\/p>\n

A player standing in a traditional position is slightly more than 18 yards from the nearest post \u2014 it\u2019s 18.2, because the D ensures players have to stand slightly outside the width of the posts. So the player out wide is 3.4 yards further away from the goal line. However, they are 0.4 yards closer than a player standing at the furthest tip of the D.<\/p>\n

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Clearly, it\u2019s unlikely that a rebound will drop to a position on the goal line itself (and the goalkeeper or the taker would surely get there first). It\u2019s likely to bounce out, and maybe slightly to the side. But how wide would the ball have to travel before it falls in favour of a player in the Corinthians position?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a clearly defined point \u2014 the corner of the six-yard box. Imagine the ball drops there. OK, it would be likely to be rolling, but let\u2019s imagine it\u2019s static for the purpose of the calculations. A player in a traditional position would be starting 12 yards away. The players on the sides? Here comes some Pythagoros again: they can be 13.4 yards from the ball. It\u2019s not closer. But it\u2019s not too different.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

So, next question: how much wider does the ball have to travel \u2014 let\u2019s say, still level with the six-yard box \u2014 before the players stationed out wide are favourite to reach the ball first?<\/p>\n

Well, not too far! If the penalty is parried (or hits the post, which takes the penalty taker out of the equation) and it\u2019s a race to get to a position level with the six yard box, but two yards wider, a player in the Corinthians position starts only 11.66 yards away. They\u2019re closer than those in traditional positions. \"\"\/<\/p>\n

Still with us? The next thing to inspect, obviously, is how often rebounds end up there.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a map of the last 50 Premier League penalties that were either saved or struck the woodwork, and where the next touch occurred. The red dots (9) are when the goalkeeper held the ball first time, or gathered the loose ball. The brown dots (8) are when the taker reached the rebound first. The green dots (11) are when another attacker has got there first, and the blue dots (14) are when a defender has got there first. The black dot? That\u2019s just the penalty spot. Oh, and if you\u2019ve noticed that the graph is missing eight dots \u2014 they\u2019re the penalties which have been saved and gone behind for a goal kick \u2014 they\u2019re not recorded here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

From this sample size of 50, there are at least nine examples of rebounds which end up in clear \u2018wider\u2019 positions that would benefit those standing to the sides of the box and a few in narrower positions, where they might stand a decent chance of getting there first.<\/p>\n

Watching some of them, it seems mad that no-one bothers standing out wide. Take Southampton vs Leicester in 2023, and Danny Ward\u2019s save from James Ward-Prowse. The ball bounces directly to where a Corinthians player would be running in towards goal. The player who does get there, Ricardo Pereira, has to turn 90 degrees to reach the ball.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another example, when West Ham\u2019s Alphonse Areola saved from Everton striker Beto in 2024. The ball is pushed out into a good position for a player running in from wide, particularly as he could potentially square to Beto for a tap-in.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

When Tottenham\u2019s Son Heung-min had a penalty saved against Wolves in December 2024, teammate Archie Gray was first on the scene. But because he\u2019d run from a head-on position, rather than breaking in from wide, he had to go away from goal. A wider starting position, and he could have delivered a dangerous ball into the six-yard box.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

This one isn\u2019t included in the nine that clearly bounce into wide positions, but when Liverpool\u2019s Giorgi Mamardashvili saved an Erling Haaland penalty earlier this season, could a player positioned wide have reached the ball before Virgil van Dijk? Maybe. He\u2019d surely have made the clearance a little more difficult.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Incidentally, from these 50 penalties, there was only one player who stood outside the width of the box, a la Corinthians \u2014 and he did it twice in the same game. Aston Villa\u2019s Donyell Malen positioned himself there for two Marco Asensio penalties at Southampton. Both were saved \u2014 but neither of the rebounds came his way.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/ \"\"\/<\/p>\n

Anyway, let\u2019s be slightly generous, for the sake of round numbers, and say that 10 of these 50 \u2014 20 per cent \u2014 of saved penalties, or those that hit the woodwork, bounce into a wider position. But what percentage of penalties overall actually produce a rebound?<\/p>\n

Well, a fairly small number. Taking into account the 784 Premier League penalties taken since the start of 2018-19, 84 per cent don\u2019t end in a rebound because they\u2019re either scored or miss the goal completely. Of the remaining 16 per cent, our sample size of 50 suggests that about\u00a020 per cent of those penalties appear to bounce into a wider position. This means we\u2019re talking about maybe 3.2 per cent of penalties where a player in the Corinthians position would benefit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a huge amount. But in the era of marginal gains, why not?<\/p>\n

Sadly, for the sake of this experiment, Corinthians players appear extremely reliable from the spot, and keep on scoring their penalties. Furthermore, their coach Lucas Piccinato was dismissed last week, and was replaced by former national team manager Emily Lima. Maybe we won\u2019t see this approach anymore. But, given the above evidence, other teams \u2014 and indeed, individual players \u2014 might as well give it a go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Arsenal Women won the inaugural Women\u2019s Champions Cup at the Emirates last month with a 3-2 victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[8764,7,16199,3372,3373,24650],"class_list":{"0":"post-781547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-champions-league","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-international-football","11":"tag-premier-league","12":"tag-soccer","13":"tag-womens-soccer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116146807038483692","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}