French Lower Division Team Presents Inventive New Way to Defend Free Kicks

The clip above comes from fourth division French soccer in a match between Grenoble and Nice’s reserve team. Nice, the team defending the free kick, decided to place its wall in the actual net and bring its keeper forward — call it the art of surprise. In the one isolated incident the gimmick strategy worked. It’s doubtful we’ll see more teams adopt this, especially at the highest level.

Why wouldn’t this work? There are plenty of reasons, but you’re asking defenders to time their jumps perfectly and block the ball with their body or their heads. I don’t know about you, but if Cristiano Ronaldo lines up to blast a ball at 70 mph — or however hard he kicks it — I’m not so sure I want to put my body or head on the line. Even if I timed my jump properly, without using my hands there’s a decent chance the ball still goes in. You’re also running a high chance of picking up a handball, too. Oh right, this strategy probably only has a passing chance of working with free kicks directly in front of the goal.

And without a wall in front of the kick, accurate free kick takes like Andrea Pirlo are going to be able to pick their spot and drop it in wherever they want. So yeah, this is a novel little gimmick and might work only for the element of surprise but I doubt we’ll see it revolutionize soccer a la defensive shifts in baseball. Teams adopting this free kick strategy seems more likely.