Culture
How long passes by goalkeepers went from practical to tactical
The death of the long ball has been frequently pronounced as football has evolved in the past few years.
Playing out from the back has become the standard. Direct teams are the anomaly rather than the norm.
The logical tactical evolution after that was the rise of the high press, followed by attempts to deliberately lure the press to exploit spaces in behind those opposition players doing the pressing.
During that time, teams have been playing shorter passes from the back. Goalkeepers are no longer habitually launching long balls as far up the pitch as they can. Instead, they play a key role in their team’s build-up phase, a trend best illustrated by the decline of the long ball in Europe’s top leagues, especially the Premier League.
Goalkeepers in England’s top flight have been playing fewer long balls. Since the start of the 2018-19 Premier League season, the percentage of goalkeeper passes played long — defined as balls that travel at least 32m (35 yards) — has been decreasing year on year, dropping from 69 per cent to under half in that six-year period.
The move towards playing shorter passes means ’keepers have increasingly been required to possess a different skill set. Technical ability on the ball has become a necessity, leading to a focus on developing goalkeepers who are good with their feet under pressure.
This increased technical quality of goalkeepers, and the rise of aggressive pressing, have led to teams maximising long passes to exploit spaces upfield.
“When you play teams against man to man, the man free is the ‘keeper,” said Pep Guardiola after his Manchester City side’s 3-0 away win against Burnley at the start of last season. “That’s why you have to use this alternative.”
In the second half of that game, City exploited Burnley’s man-marking by isolating striker Erling Haaland and using goalkeeper Ederson to play long passes to him. Ederson completed 16 of his 28 long passes at Turf Moor that night — his highest Premier League tally since 2018-19 — and one of those led to the free kick through which City scored their third goal.
Similarly, visitors Brentford tried to press City man-to-man in their Premier League match last month. Again, the City players dropped deeper to drag Brentford defenders out of position, creating space for Haaland to attack and for Ederson to send long passes into.
In this example, Jack Grealish and Savinho retreat to move their markers forward, Sepp van den Berg and Nathan Collins, and isolate Haaland against Ethan Pinnock.
Once the City players attract Brentford’s defenders higher up the pitch, Ederson plays a long ball towards Haaland, who beats Pinnock to score the winner.
“When you isolate Haaland against a central defender, with the quality that we have with Ederson and (backup goalkeeper) Stefan Ortega, it’s a weapon that we have to exploit,” said Guardiola after City’s 2-1 victory that day.
This season has been the third in a row in which City have used Ederson’s long balls towards Haaland to beat man-to-man pressing schemes. Considering the qualities and profiles of the two players, it’s a golden solution.
On the other side of Manchester, Guardiola’s United counterpart Erik ten Hag was never lucky enough to see Andre Onana’s long balls towards Diogo Dalot result in a goal.
Since the beginning of last season, ’keeper Onana has been trying to find Dalot’s runs behind the defence, whether the Portuguese full-back was starting from a narrow infield position or a wider one.
The idea is to wait until Dalot has curved his run beyond the opposition back line before the goalkeeper plays the long ball into space with the other United players vacating that area.
In the 2-1 home win against Brentford this month, Dalot snuck behind Kevin Schade — after Marcus Rashford’s narrow positioning dragged Kristoffer Ajer infield — to attack the space beyond the defence.
Onana perfectly times his long pass, with Dalot still onside…
… but the full-back shoots straight at Mark Flekken.
Liverpool have also been using their goalkeepers’ long-range distribution to execute a specific move.
Alisson and his backup Caoimhin Kelleher have been playing long balls to Mohamed Salah to start an up-back-through passing pattern down their right wing.
Liverpool’s third goal in a 4-1 win against Sevilla in pre-season is an example of how the move works: Alisson goes direct towards Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai makes a third-man run into the space the Egyptian winger has vacated, even before the latter gets the ball back to Diogo Jota, who then finds the Hungarian midfielder’s run.
Salah has received 42 per cent of Liverpool goalkeepers’ completed long passes in the Premier League this season, a stark increase compared to the previous six campaigns. New head coach Arne Slot is turning him into a direct outlet.
It’s important to remember that this is not just a case of goalkeepers launching their kicks forward with no purpose. The idea is to have a specific routine that maximises your chance of scoring a goal.
Arsenal’s David Raya has played 56 per cent of his passes long in the Premier League so far this season — only Nottingham Forest, Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers’ goalkeepers have gone direct more frequently. But Arsenal aren’t just lumping the ball forward for the sake of it. Raya’s long passes are mainly targeted towards Kai Havertz near the right touchline, with the other Arsenal players in position to try to then win the second ball.
Since Raya and Havertz joined Arsenal in summer 2023, the Germany forward has received as many of the Spain goalkeeper’s completed long passes as the rest of the team combined in the Premier League (102 of 204). The next highest receivers on the list are Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli, with just 17 each.
Football’s evolution in recent years has turned goalkeepers’ long balls into a tool to attack space and progress up the pitch.
More emphasis on build-up play has favoured technically sound ‘keepers, while also leading to the rise of aggressive pressing and higher defensive lines. Goalkeepers can target specific areas and team-mates to bypass that press and attack the space it inevitably creates.
Numerically, long balls played by ’keepers are in decline but tactically, they are more important than ever.
(Top photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
Cold weather can serve as a plot point or emphasize the mood of a scene, and this week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of recent novels that work winter conditions right into the story. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, the questions offer an additional hint about the setting. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
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