Zonal marking: your set-piece salvation?

Often maligned by pundits, zonal marking was not just designed for teams at the very top of the game – it can be used at every level, even in grassroots youth soccer.

The system has its champions and critics, but its use is often just a matter of taste.

Many coaches utilise the system very effectively. When he was manager of Liverpool, between 2004 and 2010, Rafael Benitez was a big advocate of zonal marking and helped the club to achieve one of the best records at defending set pieces in the Premier League.

Should you try using this system at grassroots level? Well, it is particularly helpful if your players regularly struggle to hang on to the attackers they are marking, or if they fail to organise themselves each time they face a corner or free kick.

Given a set position, your players will grasp what they have to do and respond well to their part of the defensive responsibility.

That is because, when using zonal marking, defending becomes a collective responsibility for the team, rather than an individual one.

Some argue the success or failure of the system is dependent on a coach’s ability to explain the concept to their players.

"When using zonal marking, defending becomes a collective responsibility..."

The point of zonal marking is to protect the space around the goal by assigning each of your players a role they can adopt without thinking each time the situation requires it.

In full zonal marking, you have two players on the posts, three more along the six-yard line, another three in front of them, and one around the edge of the ’D’. One team-mate remains up the pitch as the ‘out ball’.

So they are not colliding, the zone players only move forwards and towards the space around them in an attempt to go for the ball. The keeper is also much freer to come and claim it.

Depending on the trajectory of the ball, players attack the space around them if the ball is close enough to warrant action. 

There are variants of zonal marking, notably a hybrid where you assign someone – usually your biggest and best header of the ball – to mark the opposition’s aerial danger, but obviously you need to know the opposition well to identify such a threat.

If you are thinking of employing zonal marking, remind your players it takes time and practice to work the system to perfection and don’t be tempted to give up the first time it goes wrong.