The use of Zone 14 as a strategic attacking area in the English Championship

Whilst research in performance analysis of soccer has often investigated strategies for success, relatively little attention has been devoted to the so called ‘zone 14’ which seems popular within coaching, particularly in the UK. This area of the pitch is located centrally, directly in front of the 18 yard box (see Fig. 1). Research suggests that successful teams play more passes into this attacking area than unsuccessful teams (Grant, Williams, Reilly and Borrie, 1998) and that the majority of attempts at goal result from assists from this area (Horn, Williams and Grant, 2000). Furthermore, passes played from zone 14 into the penalty area produce four times the number of goals than passes laterally from wing positions (Horn, Williams and Ensum, 2002).
Previous research related to zone 14 has been limited to international and English Premier League teams. This paper analysed 12 matches involving four English Championship teams during the 2010/11 season. Two teams were classified as successful as they were in the top six throughout data collection, the two classified as unsuccessful were in the bottom six.
The analysed teams had 280 possessions in zone 14 (45.1% of attacks) suggesting Championship teams have an average of about 23 possessions in zone 14 per game. Whilst successful teams had slightly less possessions in zone 14 than unsuccessful teams (n=134 vs. 146 respectively), they converted more of them (43.2% vs. 28.8% respectively) into critical incidents (shots) (chi square = 4.12, df = 1, p < .05). This suggests that how possessions are used in zone 14 rather than the frequency of possessions in this area is a performance indicator in English Championship soccer.

Organised by: University of West Hungary, Savaria Campus; Institute of Sport Science Szombathely-Hungary.
Supported by the International Network on Sport and Health Sciences (INSHS).