Zonal Marking: It's not as evil as you think it is

That is not to say that zonal marking is the way to go. Teams put in a large number of hours on the training ground, trying to perfect their set piece defending and managers spend a lot of time on the drawing board, trying to figure out how best to stop the opposition scoring from corners. There is no best way to go about it; there is only what works best for a team, a particular group of players – be it zonal, man-to-man or a mixture of the both.

But zonal marking is definitely not as nonsensical as it is made out to be. It only looks more ridiculous when it fails. Celtic conceded two set piece goals to Milan, and there was great hue and cry. On the other hand, the recent 3-3 Merseyside derby saw all six goals scored following set pieces (two of them being corners) but nobody looked to criticize the man marking systems employed by both Liverpool and Everton.

In man marking, the responsibility often falls to the player marking the scorer, and the system is rarely blamed. But ultimately, it was the system which dictated that one specific player was supposed to mark another, so why is just the player at fault?

Moreover (as we have seen in the Celtic-Milan examples), while defending zonally as well, the mistake can often be accredited to a particular player. The fact that it is often harder to spot and pinpoint should not make it any less crucial.

The disadvantages of zonal marking are well documented; a zone never scores a goal, the attacker with a running jump will always beat the defender who jumps from a standing position and no one takes responsibility. Zonal marking’s advantages however, are often overlooked. Moreover, there exists a counter to each of the above mentioned ‘disadvantages’.

A zone never scores a goal, but goals are scored from dangerous zones and eventually, it is the ball which has to be kept out of the net. An attacker can at any time get a run on the defender marking him. The defender can jump all he wants then, but will be no nearer to stopping the goal than he would have been had he been defending zonally. And the last one is just absurd – how is taking responsibility for a ‘zone’ different from taking responsibility for a ‘man’? To suggest that a player can do one and not the other amounts to insulting his intelligence.

While defending zonally, the defender cannot be blocked off by another player and there exists no confusion regarding any particular defender’s ‘man’. How many times have we seen a substitute coming off the bench and scoring from a corner because nobody was picking him up?

Zonal marking dictates that each defender defend his own zone, and is essentially a more pro active approach, whereas man marking is more reactive as it depends on how the opposition attacks the corner.

Take for instance, Liverpool and Suarez’s second goal against Norwich at Anfield last week.

Suarez scores his second to put Liverpool two up against Norwich.

Here we see Coutinho taking the corner from the left. Gerrard (circled in red), who usually takes the corners, is left unmarked. Bassong (near the penalty spot, circled in black), is pointing at Gerrard and shouting at someone to pick him up.

Meanwhile, in the confusion created by Gerrard’s unexpected presence in the box, Skrtel starts drifting away from Bassong and is eventually present free at the back post (area marked in blue). As the corner is played in, Gerrard makes a run towards the near post (area marked in yellow) and flicks it on for Suarez to score.

This situation presents a classic example of how one additional unmarked player can create mayhem in the opposition’s penalty area.

A zonal marking system, on the other hand, would need only a specific number of players to defend a corner, irrespective of how many attackers are pushed forward. The defending team would then be able to position the rest of their players in areas from where they could effectively launch quick counter attacks, making zonal marking a pro active strategy in more ways than one.