Why Chelsea & Reading were Successful with the Long Ball
The two WSL sides had similar approaches to long passes in the 2020/2021 season
Long balls are often looked at as something teams resort to when they don’t have the technical ability or tactical set up to play a possession-based game.
However, when there is purpose and thought put into long passes themselves and the set up around the pass, they can be very useful for teams.
It is important to demonstrate what I defined as a long ball for this post. A long pass is any pass that originated in the defensive third that ended in the attacking third.
I narrowed the position types of players who attempted these passes to goalkeepers, defenders and midfielders.
A visualization of how I defined long balls can be seen below.
I looked at long balls in the WSL for the 2020/2021 season. I originally wanted to see which teams were the best at setting up for winning second balls from long passes.
There were also other patterns that emerged that will be discussed throughout the post.
After defining what a long ball was, I looked at which teams attempted the most long passes throughout the season.
As I started working with the long pass data, Michael Cox wrote an article about how the long ball is a dying aspect of Premier League football.
He points out that teams, regardless of hierarchy in the league, are moving away from long passes.
It’s an interesting contrast that Chelsea, the best team in the WSL, was in the top third of long passes attempted in the 20/21 WSL season.
We usually associate top teams with possession and less likely to play the long ball.
After connecting the data with the video, two teams stood out in how they were successful with long passes: Reading and Chelsea.
Both teams were multifaceted with how they made the long ball work. The patterns I identified were second ball wins, delayed recoveries after the initial pass, runs into wide channels, passes made through or over back lines, and throw ins earned in the attacking third.
Second Balls
This is the area that I was initially looking at when I first started looking at the data. It’s the first pattern discussed in this post because the patterns that Reading and Chelsea used to win second balls showed up in the other patterns.
Both teams had a similar set up when a long pass was attempted. There was the player receiving the pass, player(s) close by in support, player(s) running in behind, and faced up runner(s) underneath to pick up potential second balls.
Delayed Recoveries After the Initial Pass
Often, long passes weren’t completed, and the opposition regained possession. However, this gave teams the opportunity to set up defensively in their attacking third in order to win the ball back higher up the field.
Chelsea and Reading differed in how they completed delayed recoveries. Chelsea would sit slightly back and force teams to try and play through their organized set up. Reading would press and try to regain possession as soon as possible.
Runs Into Wide Channels
Both teams found success with diagonal runs into wide spaces.
Long Pass Over & Through Back Lines
Whenever both teams played long passes through or over back lines, they were set up so that they could win any possible second balls.
Throw Ins
There were times when the pass wasn’t completed, or the opposition regained possession shortly after, but the ball was put out of play for a throw in.
The following clips are examples of how both Chelsea and Reading were able to throw in the ball directly into the box. Both plays produced shot opportunities.
Conclusion
In Cox’s article he states that long ball football at the highest level is probably dead. He’s likely right, but it makes Chelsea’s number of attempted long passes in the 20/21 season more interesting.
Chelsea clearly has the talent and the technical ability to keep the ball. However, when they have two center backs with range (Magdalena Eriksson & Millie Bright) paired with two very athletic forwards (Pernille Harde & Sam Kerr) and an attacking midfielder who constantly makes runs into the channel (Fran Kirby), it makes sense why they would continue to attempt long passes.
It also makes them a more dynamic team that can exploit the opposition in more than one way.
For Reading (and teams like them), the long ball is a way for them to advance up the field if they don’t have the individual quality or technicality to play the possession game.
The long ball may or may not die out in the women’s game at some point. But as of 2021, it still has a pulse.
Photo: Ben Hoskins/GettyImages