Inswingers, Screens & Coffee Machines: Inside The Minds of FC Midtjylland’s Set Piece Gurus

Michele Aragona (left) & Martin Mark (right)

Set pieces are a hot topic at the moment, with teams like Arsenal and Bayer Leverkusen grabbing headlines with a new-found focus on making the most from dead ball situations. But over in Denmark one club has been pioneering set piece routines for over a decade. I sat down with FC Midtjylland’s Head of Set Pieces, Martin Mark and Set Piece Analyst Michele Aragona to hear more about how last season’s champions are continuing to innovate in the space.

You spent a lot of your career coaching at AaB and FC Midtjylland but what made you want to put your focus entirely on set pieces?

Martin: I’ve been a youth coach for a long time in different clubs, but when I came to FC Midtjylland they showed a big interest in me as a person and they believed I had the skills to dig into special tasks, to talk to players and really get into the details needed for set pieces. If you had interviewed me three years ago, I would have said I had no plans to be a set piece trainer. But when I got the chance and saw the way the club believed in me, it gave me a really good feeling - one I still have.

So what does your day-to-day look like?

Michele: Of course there's a lot of crossover between a set piece analyst and a set piece coach, every day we share a lot of thoughts on how can we improve certain things, how we can exploit the weakness of the opponent, how we can improve, even in the in the training sessions. Martin and I have distinct roles but people still confuse them. The set piece coaches are more involved on the pitch and the set piece analysts are more involved in the office, but we have a really strong connection, even if we only started to work together three months ago. Every week, we focus personally on analysing the training sessions, analysing the opponent in every way possible, in order to exploit their weaknesses, and then thinking about how can we defend against their strengths. I really go in-depth on this and it’s probably the most time consuming task during the week. We work with our data analysts too to help us with the visualisation of data, so everything is clear and easy to understand for the players when we reach the team meeting day, and we are lucky because the set pieces are really engrained into the culture of the club. So even the new players coming in, they know that how much effort we put in and how much effort the club loves to to invest in set pieces as one of the four biggest pillars in the club structure. I have to say, we get a great response from the players - they really love to dig more into the set piece world because they can see on the pitch that by delivering the best possible set pieces there is a noticeable effect on their ability to get goals and assists.

Martin: I follow the rest of the staff and sit closely with the head coach and the assistant head coach as part of the morning meeting before training. In the training session itself we can work with individuals, so that could be direct free kicks with one player, or a group where we train corners, it could be the starting 11 or the whole squad. We try to involve set pieces as much as possible in the training sessions - it could be as simple as instead of starting with the ball still on the ground, you start with a throw in, into the feet, and immediately the passing exercise begins. Or we play games where if you win a set piece, you get three set pieces in a row, just to build set pieces in as a as a style of play. But right now, playing in Europe and Superligaen we don’t train as much. There’s a lot of meetings, a lot of individual talks. Drawing on top of clips, really involving the players, asking what they think and what they’d do in a particular scenario.

Is your time split 50-50 between attacking and defending set pieces?

Martin: It’s more like 90% attacking and 10% defensive. We have an offensive mindset in our style of play, we want to attack, we want to dominate the opponent on set pieces and put pressure on them. Against Brøndby for example, it was a kick off ball where we were on the defensive, they got it, we saw them attack up with a lot of players and knew that if our opposite winger stayed up and we won the ball, we could immediately pass it over to him. That’s what happened, he got a chance, we had a long throw in, and for the next four and a half minutes we just attacked them, with throw in after throw in into the box. I think it was four throw ins in a row. Having five set pieces in the first four minutes of the game really puts our opponents under pressure.

Michele: Of course we put the time needed into the defensive part too. So yes it’s 90% attacking, but when we spot some weaknesses in our defensive structure, we are the first one to talk about it and then assess it as fast as possible.

Martin: When it comes to the team meeting, it’s more 50-50, as we need to be really definitive about how we block, what the signals are, because we don’t have time to do that on the pitch so we have to make the most of the time we have with the video.

I think when I first heard about FC Midtjylland, before I even started watching Danish football, it was in 2016 when you were playing Manchester Untied in the Champions League and I remember even then there was a lot of talk about FCM as a team who were innovating on and off the pitch, especially with data and set pieces. How much does that reputation the club have as an innovator in the space push you to continue to find new ways of doing things?

Martin: I think it's still a big thing in FC Midtjylland. We use a load of different tools, for example when we train free kicks we have built our own wall with a net. If you have an idea, you can make it happen, that’s the approach here. From 2014 the club really started for focus on set pieces and won the championship not long after. I think in that season they scored +20 goals from set pieces and the next best team scored +8. A few years after that other teams in the league started to focus on set pieces more, but FCM was the first Superliga team to hire a dedicated set piece coach and a dedicated set piece analyst. Now every Superliga team has a set piece coach because it’s such a big thing in Denmark. Our belief is that when it comes to set pieces you need to think in a different way so for a corner for example, everybody prepares for the first ball, but we place a lot of emphasis on the second ball, where will it drop? How will we we win it? We try to be one step in front of of all the other clubs and I think right now, we are +12 set piece goals this season and maybe it's only one or two goals we have scored on a first contact.

Michele: You only have to look at the fact Chelsea spent €1m to bring in set piece coach Bernardo Cueva to get an understanding of how seriously big teams are taking it. Arsenal have had a focus on this area for a number of years, Aston Villa is doing really well with a former FC Midtjylland coach, so I think in the future it’s something that will become even more established.

For sure, I mean most Arsenal fans would be able to tell you about [set piece coach] Nicholas Jover. A few years ago I’m not sure anyone would have had a clue as to who was in that role.

Martin: He was here in Midtjylland actually - back in 2018 or so - just to learn how we do things when it comes to set pieces. Two weeks after he got a job at Brentford and now you see him on the Champions League coverage whenever Arsenal get a set piece the camera zooms in on him!

How much does a player’s set piece ability influence the decision for the club to buy them? Christian Sørensen for example arrived despite the club already having several left back ins Paulinho and Bak, but he is known for being a real specialist in dead ball situations.

Martin: I think it has a big influence. For [Sørensen] if he didn’t have the foot as a set piece taker I don’t think he’d be playing at this level. For him it was also a special case because we tend to get a lot of injuries at left back and suddenly he was a transfer option. But if you take Dario Osorio, who we bought from Chile, he has a fantastic left foot, fantastic technique, so everything is there for him to become a great set piece taker. But when he arrived he wasn’t one, so we’ve been helping him learn, doing lots of training specifically on this. One of the things I’ve tried to show him is that here in FC Midtjylland you can play and get say 10 goals and 7 assists in a season. But if you focus on set pieces you might still get 10 goals but 18 assists. No matter what we will score a lot of goals from set pieces, but as a player if you get 18 assists rather than 7 that can be the difference between playing at the bottom Premier League club or one of the top ones. So we try to motivate him because he’s a guy who’s come here at 19 clearly with aspirations to play in a bigger league in the future and to reach a top team set pieces are one way he can get there.

When it comes to deciding who takes free kicks and penalties how much does the head coach rely on you to guide him?

Martin: I think we are lucky that we have a head coach right now who really believes in us. He believe in set pieces, so he give us the time, but of course he has the final word. So when we get to a penalty shootout for example, I give him a list and say these are the seven players I think need to be takers and so far he has never said no.

You mentioned Osorio as a guy who you saw as having all the raw ingredients to be a great set piece taker. What specifically do you look for in a player when it comes to set pieces?

Martin: Of course technique when it comes to striking the ball, but it's also quite important that you have a sharp brain. If you go back in history, we have had Jakob Paulsen at FC Midtjylland, who has the most set piece assists of any player I think in Europe. If you look at what he was good at sure his technique was great, but he also could read the situation. You’d see him pointing at players and moving them if they were in the wrong position so he was almost like a coach out there. Dario is not there right now, but you need a lot of experience before you get there. Ward-Prowse is a good example of a guy who has it, but it's really difficult to find those guys. Saka at Arsenal is another one - the coach will say put the ball precisely there, and he can do it every single time. And we also get inspiration from American football, you know, they have a taker, but they also have a spy taker as they call it. Someone who looks out for how the opponent is setting up and can alter the play to make it more effective. 

So for something like a corner where the variables are less than a free kick in terms of placement, how many different variations would you normally go into a game with?

Martin: Not many. We play Bucharest today and we have three different variants. I know back in Midtjylland’s prime history, in around 2018 there was eight to ten set pieces there. Now, even with three different signals, that can be too much for the players, and you know, set pieces are all about small details. So if you're not on the right timing, on the right spot, it will never be a success for you. We think it's better to have fewer and be good at them. Of course the opponent can read us, but sometimes we switch it up at halftime. I just pull up a flip board and say right you go there, you go there and you go there and we try it.

Michele: We have three or four things in-game that we do to 100%, and for us that is preferable to having 10 things we do at 70%.

So does your set piece strategy vary by team or do you have a core strategy you stick to for most games?

Martin: It’s all dependent on the opponent - for us there is a big difference between playing against a full zonal team compared to a team who go man-to-man. So even if the core strategy is similar the small details will change. Today against Bucharest, we know they keep one or two up in front. So if we go with two players for a short corner, what will they do? Because if they put two out for the short corner, whilst having two up front, then that’s four players out from the box, so they can only defend with six players in the box. Usually every time you have a corner, you have more players inside the box than the attacking team. Then you also have to remember that the open play strength of a team doesn’t always match their set piece strength. You can play a team from the second division who are insanely strong from set pieces, or you can play one of the best Superliga teams but they’re the worst at set pieces.

Is there a set piece you’ve always wanted to do but never been able to persuade a head coach to execute?

Martin: Of course you go on YouTube and see really smart set piece tricks and dream about doing it so every one will say ‘wow, what happened there!’. But I think we are quite conservative about what we do, because right now it’s going well for us. 

The set piece league table proudly on display at FC Midtjylland’s training HQ.

What kind of interaction is there with the wider FCM coaching team?

Martin: In our main training building at FC Midtjylland we have an area called the heart where there is a coffee machine. 200 people or so - only one coffee machine - and you do this because you want to have everybody together. So when I go and I pick up my coffee, I could meet both the u10 coach and the CEO at the same time. So that everyone can see it we have two league tables above the coffee machine: the Superliga standings and the set piece league. The set piece league is about who have scored (and conceded) most goals on set pieces. So we are number 1 with +10. AGF is number two with +6, but FC København have -2.

There's obviously a big difference in terms of pressure between training and a match and especially when it comes to penalties and free kicks. How do you account for that difference in pressure?

Martin: I believe a lot in this pressure, and that is, for me, the biggest issue we have. Something can work perfectly for us on the training pitch but when you are playing in front of 45,000 people yelling at you, or having bottles thrown at you as you take a corner, you can’t train for that. You can train penalties, we try to give players a safe penalty where they know ‘ok if I put the ball there, I can score 10 out of 10 times.’ But in a match scenario it’s different. When we played to get into to Europe last year, we had a shootout where we scored six penalties, and for number seven we had a good guy, an experienced guy step up. But when he got the penalty spot his legs just got heavy. He was saying ‘I don't know what happened, because when I put the ball down, everything was normal, I took my step backs, everything was fine, but when I took the first step forward and my legs got heavy, and I shot to the left despite going to the right every time in training.’ Sometimes in pre-season training we can say if you miss a penalty the team has to do two extra runs as a bit of extra pressure and motivation, but it’s not the same.

Michele: In fact this is part of our job too, because we really need to assess every possible detail in training that we can control, so that when they need to deliver in a game, especially with a lot of pressure, they only need to think that everything is in place in terms of their placement and delivery, in terms of where their teammates will move. If we’re not clear during training it only adds to the pressure in the moment.

People often say penalty shoot outs are a lottery, but in your opinion how much is luck vs. skill?

Martin: We cannot say that there is not some part of luck and I don't think you can train it 100% because of the pressure, but I believe that you can put some percentage over to your favour. The problem now is that everyone has access to data so now it's much closer to 50-50 than it was in previous years. For penalties, the goalkeeping coach also does a huge amount of work when it comes to penalties. We have a wealth of data, not just where a player directs their penalty but what was the game state at the time, how much time had elapsed in, etc. So when we scored against Brøndby in the last game with a penalty, Buksa had seen a video on the keeper and knew that because he wasn’t the tallest he has to go early so on the final step look up and if the keeper has gone you can just aim for the centre of the goal. If he hasn’t moved then you just aim for one of the sides and he won’t have the height to reach it. Today we play against a big keeper, so with that it’s more of a quick setup, quick take approach.

What would you say is a common misconception when it comes to set pieces?

Michele: I think there is something cultural about it. Before this I was at different professional clubs in Italy and I never saw many clubs put a lot of effort into set pieces. They think it’s just a part of the game but how many minutes do they dedicate to it each week? Maybe 10 minutes the day before the game. Sometimes they wouldn’t even practice a single corner during the week. So for me the biggest misconception is that set pieces are not that important. Why would you spend only 10 minutes on it if 30% of your goals are from set pieces? When I came to Denmark, everyone was so into set pieces and really loved to see the videos and presentations about them. At previous clubs the set piece meeting would be 2 or 3 minutes because the players were bored with the topic.

Martin: When you come up through our academy you grow up with set pieces, but if we bring a player in from abroad they often haven’t had the same focus so it’s something they need to learn quickly. We can see every time we start a season our set pieces are medium, not quite there. But suddenly you score two goals in three games and it goes massive. All our goals in the month of October came from set pieces, and suddenly you see the players believe in it and can see how important it is.

Is there a set piece goal this season that stands out as being perfectly executed?

Martin: Against Lyngby I think, because it was a goal from an out-swinging corner which we normally don’t prepare. That came from half-time where we got a whiteboard out and said we cannot do what we trained because they can read us so we changed it up. Then the first corner we had after the break we scored with. Also against AGF - they are one of the best set piece teams in the Superliga and if you look at the set piece league we were only 2 goals different from them when we played them. They had 19 set pieces against us, put us under a lot of pressure. But they had an xG under 0.10 and we scored two set piece goals against them and won 2-0. So suddenly the set piece league instead of 2 goals difference there’s now 6 goals difference between us. Everyone in Denmark talked about how it was no longer a football game but a set piece game as there was 36 set pieces total. That was a good feeling though because we defended well and scored two against the next best team.

Michele: We have all the trust in the world from the club and they know that even in a period where we are struggling in open play, they can rely on us to deliver the best job possible every time from set pieces.

Martin: We have won four championships in FC Midtjylland’s history and in all four of those the difference between what we score on set pieces and what we concede on them is huge. Last season we scored 18 and conceded 7, so +11. But the previous three seasons where we didn’t win a championship the difference was +6, +4 and +3. When the difference is so low it’s really hard to win a championship, but when the difference is +11 or +12 we know we have a great chance to become champions.

Has the advent of VAR changed how people approach set pieces?

Martin: Well of course there are now more penalties than before. Particularly handballs where there is a lot of traffic in the box. If you go back, especially in Denmark, there was a lot of grabbing and blocking like in American football, not even looking at the ball just focusing on your opponent and taking them out. That obviously can’t happen anymore. The worst thing from our perspective is if a goalkeeper catches the ball on a set piece, but the second worst thing is if you foul the keeper as then you have 100% chance of not winning the ball. For us the second ball is so important, it’s almost like a power play in ice hockey as our centre backs are there and you can keep the ball around that area for one to two minutes, putting pressure on.

And what about the games on artificial turf, do they impact how you approach set pieces at all?

Martin: I would say that it changes the number of set pieces we get - much lower than on grass. I think often it’s because the two teams we play against on artificial turf (FC Nordsjælland & Silkeborg) are really good possession teams. There are no bumps in the grass. But when we play Vejle for example, you will see bumpy bits around the pitch and that just doesn’t happen on artificial turf. When that’s the case you tend to work with shorter combinations from set pieces, maximum one or two passes because you can’t rely on the pitch.

Michele: One thing that we didn’t mention is that we during the game have a live stream of set pieces. Martin is on the bench to assess them and I’m in the stands with a computer to tag everything related to set pieces. At half time I go to him and we talk about what to change, what to try, what to assess. He then delivers to the coaches and the players the immediate things we can do to have a better second half.