Arda Guler had done it before. His first-ever goal for Turkey was a delightful curler from outside the box. And so, when he let the ball fly on his Euros debut against Georgia, the ‘Turkish Messi’ had little doubt about the shot’s outcome — piercing through the crisp Dortmund air and bending beautifully to ruffle the top corner.
The goal made Guler the youngest scorer at the Euros; the talk of the tournament’s early stages. More significantly, it put long-range goals in vogue. Guler’s isn’t the only one.
Twelve out of the 42 goals scored so far in the Euros (until the Scotland-Switzerland match) were screamers from outside the box. This, the game’s stats-keepers said, is an anomaly. Everywhere else, the number of goals and shots from outside the box is decreasing.
Long rangers, they argued, were out of fashion and on a sharp decline, if not on the verge of extinction. Numbers backed this theory: at Euro 2012, only 8 out of the total 76 goals were scored from outside the box. Four years later, the figure doubled to 16 but so did the total goals, which increased to 108 meaning the long-rangers accounted for 14.8 per cent. And at Euro 2020, 19 out of the 142 goals were scored from a distance (all stats from Opta).
Even in the English Premier League, only 11.5 percent of goals were scored from outside the box last season, the lowest since 2010/11 according to Opta. And at the 2022 World Cup, zero long-range goals were scored in the first round of group-stage matches.
Of course, the sample size of Euro 2024 is pretty small yet and the average might come down as the tournament progresses. Some of the long-range shots have gone in because of deflection and in a few cases, poor goalkeeping might have contributed.
But goals from the likes of Guler and Razvan Marin, finding the corner from a distance, have lit up the tournament and contributed to the increasing number of long-range goals.
His goal made Guler the youngest scorer at the Euros; the talk of the tournament’s early stages. (Reuters)
The threadbare analysis will take place in the days to come but prima facie, two compelling reasons stand out.
The tactical factor
UEFA’s technical review of the previous Euros noted that teams were more inclined to ‘work the ball into areas’ to produce a goal ‘rather than the low-percentage option of striking at goal from distance.’
The trend, Sky Sports noted, is in continuation of what is preached and practised at the club level, where more and more players are discouraged from having a wild go at goal and are instead coached to play in patterns in the attacking third.
In international football, that’s not always the case and smaller nations aren’t Real Madrids or Manchester Citys who are managed by super coaches who are quick to reprimand their players if they go slightly off-script.
In the first round of the group stage at the ongoing Euros, the best long-rangers have been scored by players from Romania and Turkey. Six out of the nine shots Romania managed against Ukraine, in fact, were from outside the box.
This could be because the players lack the telepathic understanding in the final third, where they can find teammates even without looking up, the quality of playmakers and attackers too might not be at the same level as the traditional favourites and the rewards of a long-range effort far outweigh the risk.
That could be a basic explanation for why more technically superior players would be cautious of having a go from a distance. This isn’t to say, however, that Guler lacks quality. For the Real Madrid starlet, whose youth coach vows he is more talented than Messi, a long-ranger could be as normal as a tap-in for a poacher.
The ball
Another standout factor in Guler’s goal was how the ball stayed true to its trajectory and did exactly what the Turkish scorer intended. The pick of the long-rangers have all been curlers rather than shots thumped in from a distance.
That, according to The Athletic, is because of the evolution of the ball. “The Euro 2024 ball is not a major outlier from other balls of the current era, although it appears fast through the air. But the key is that it moves in the correct manner,” the report said.
Guler got the ball to start from outside of the goal and then got it to bend inwards. Romania’s Nicolae Stanciu used the spin of the ball to curl it away from the goalkeeper, while Nicolo Barella scored a half-volley that swung inwards ever-so-slightly. In almost all cases, the ball did exactly what the goal-scorer wanted it to do.
Early indications are that it has to do with the ball as much as the skill of the player. The Adidas Fussballliebe – the official Euro 2024 ball – has indentations on its 20 panels on the outer shell, which control the airflow over the ball and provide maximum precision, according to the ball’s makers.
This technology, used in different forms over the last decade, has ruled out the unpredictable up-and-down or left-right movement that was seen earlier. In a way, it’s the technology complimenting the technique.