As Tyler Adams collected the ball around 40 yards from goal during the US men’s national team’s win over Mexico at the weekend, Sergio Aguero’s reaction when Vincent Kompany lined up a shot for Manchester City, towards the end of the 2018-19 season, came to mind.
“NO, VINNY, NO!” screamed Aguero at his captain, a man not renowned for his powerful shooting. But Aguero’s horror turned to delight as the ball whistled into the top corner, sealing a 1-0 win over Leicester that effectively secured the Premier League title for City that season.
𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂 🤩
Who can forget this outrageous thunderbolt from @VincentKompany ☄️
📆 #OnThisDay 2019
🔷 #ManCity | https://t.co/axa0klD5re pic.twitter.com/Bpref96Zzp— Manchester City (@ManCity) May 6, 2021
Adams’s USMNT teammates could certainly identify with Aguero. “Usually, when Tyler shoots, you go ahead and get back into your position,” said Crystal Palace defender Chris Richards. “Row Z,” added Tim Ream. “I thought, ‘OK, there’s a goal kick coming.’”
The celebrations carried that air of amazement that you generally see in two specific scenarios: 1) when a footballer who doesn’t score many goals unexpectedly gets a cracker, and 2) when a small child surprisingly completes a basic jigsaw puzzle. The first player to reach him in the celebrations was goalkeeper Matt Turner. Christian Pulisic looked like he’d just seen someone hit the bullseye on a dartboard while blindfolded.
(Shaun Clark/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
This wasn’t just intra-squad banter. Adams doesn’t score goals. His strike against Mexico was his second for the US in 38 caps, the first coincidentally coming against the same opposition six years ago. He hasn’t scored in two (admittedly injury-disrupted) seasons in England. He got two in four seasons for RB Leipzig, which were both during lockdown, meaning his thunderbolt against Mexico was his first goal in front of a crowd since 2018. He was comparatively prolific in his 81 appearances for New York Red Bulls with three goals, two of which came in one game(!)
So, in total, that’s seven goals across 250 appearances over seven and a half seasons of senior football. Only one of his previous strikes came from outside the area: it was for RB Leipzig against Atletico Madrid in the 2020 Champions League quarter-final, and it took not one but two deflections on the way in.
In summary, you can see why Richards and Ream and the rest of the US side were surprised.
Adams called attempting the shot a “no-brainer”, given that no Mexican players seemed keen to close him down. When you’ve barely played for a year and this is your first start for the national team since the World Cup, you’re probably more inclined to wind up and try your luck.
But it’s actually something that has become rarer and rarer in recent times.
The numbers indicate a relatively steady downward trend in shots attempted from outside the penalty area over the last few years, something that we wrote about in more depth in November. In 2009-10, 45 per cent of the total shots taken in the Premier League were from distance, while this season it’s currently at a 32.9 per cent.
And this isn’t a trend isolated to England. Over a similar time period, the ratio of long shots has dropped from 43 per cent to 35 in Spain; in Italy it’s 49 per cent to 37; in Germany, 43 to 33 per cent; and in the Champions League, the numbers are 48 per cent to 33.
It isn’t just confined to club football, either. The graph above displays the number of long-range efforts taken during World Cups: as you can see, the decline was relatively gradual from 1966, the first tournament there are figures available for, but over the last four editions the numbers have fallen off a cliff. In every tournament until 2010 the majority of shots were taken from outside the penalty box (apart from 1998 when it briefly dipped to 49.6 per cent), but in Qatar that figure had plunged to 36.7 per cent.
The reason is fairly obvious. That time period correlates with the rise in analytical thinking at the top level of the men’s game, where xG has quantified what probably should have been pretty obvious anyway: that shooting from distance is a much less efficient way of scoring than shifting the ball into a more advantageous position and creating better quality shooting opportunities.
Which is fair enough: after all, it’s entirely sensible and logical for teams to instruct their players to get into better positions before shooting. But if the trend continues, the long shot will become a rarity, which will be a shame from a few different perspectives.
Firstly, on a tactical level it’s probably useful to be as unpredictable as possible when it comes to shooting. If a team knows the exact way you are going to create chances, they can arrange their defence accordingly. If they know you aren’t going to shoot from further than about 20 yards out and instead will just try to move the ball to create space in the area, they won’t bother closing you down very much and stay deep and compact, thus making your Plan A more difficult. This is an extreme example, but a few unexpected long shots will keep the opposition on their toes, if nothing else.
But more than that, long shots are fun. Even the ones that don’t go in are fun, because there’s a moment of delicious anticipation when someone winds up from way, way out: they’re going to hit this…are we about to see something spectacular…something thrilling…somethi…oh, no, they’ve shanked it into the stands. But that little moment was good, wasn’t it?
And then there are the ones that do come off. From a statistical point of view, even though he was given plenty of space, the sensible thing for Adams to have done at the weekend was find a colleague in a more advantageous position. Thankfully, he didn’t. He took the non-sensible option.
(Shaun Clark/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
Football should surely be about something more than the most statistically likely outcome. It should be about visceral moments like the Adams goal, something that will stay with you. The USMNT’s other goal against Mexico was perfectly good, a Gio Reyna snapshot from inside the area that squirted through a collection of bodies and went in at the near post. It was a much more sensible and high-percentage effort. But which one are you more likely to remember in a few years?
So enjoy goals like the one scored by Adams. Embrace the illogical parts of football, even the ones that don’t come off. They’re becoming rarer and rarer.
(Header photo: Shaun Clark/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
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