Ready, set, goal: Here’s why the KC Current have excelled on set pieces this season

Goalkeepers coach Lloyd Yaxley has mainly been working with the Kansas City Current’s — you guessed it — goalkeepers.

But another role held by this assistant to Current head coach Matt Potter also happens to be playing a huge role in the team’s success.

This Current (4-4-3) have been very effective on set pieces this season. Not only in terms of goals produced, but also in terms of defending them pretty well.

From Potter to the players, the reason given for this seems to be unanimous:

“It comes down to Lloyd.”

Yaxley digs into the science of set pieces with a passion. His stints at other National Women’s Soccer League clubs since 2013 combine to give him some pretty deep scouting insight into the tendencies of not only the goalkeepers he’s coached, but also those his players through the years have faced.

That knowledge plays well into how his current squad sets up in dead-ball situations. There’s little doubt the Current will face a few more such scenarios on Sunday evening when they play host to OL Reign at Children’s Mercy Park (6 p.m. kickoff).

“From being in the league so long, it’s kind of an understanding of the goalkeepers, the opponent’s goalkeeper’s tendencies and where we can maybe exploit them,” Yaxley said. “Obviously, we have to study how we defend set pieces as well. It’s almost like the yin and yang and the seesaw, the opposites of how they might get exploited, and how we can exploit.”

Yaxley coached the Washington Spirit’s goalkeepers from 2013-15 and the Orlando Pride’s keepers from 2017 through the end of last season. While he’s coached set-piece strategy in the past, it’s a little different here in Kansas City (Potter hired him to join the Current’s staff after his own hire here this past offseason).

While Potter and Yaxley share opinions on how set pieces should be defended, Yaxley has free rein to be as creative as he’d like on the attacking side.

“Hey, let’s throw some crazy stuff out there and see what works,” Yaxley laughed.

Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

“We were joking as a staff that there are some plays that we’ve tried and it’s just not worked in training, but then in the game it works,” he explained.

Like any good coach, Yaxley won’t take too much credit for his players’ successes. He loves drawing up ideas, sure, but for the most part, he credits execution of those ideas by the women on the field — the Current’s players.

“I think some of our set pieces, there are three or four options within the one set piece,” Yaxley said. “Whatever fingerprints I have on it, a lot of that (success) is on the players, because they have multiple decisions to solve.

“We give them different options about what the opponent might show. So that’s on them, and they’ve executed in games.”

As the Current players and coaches find success on certain set pieces, they remain attentive to what opposing teams are using to counter them. This is an important bit, too: managing the game within the game. It’s all about helping the Current find an edge, ways to get on the scoresheet when maybe other things aren’t working out so well during a particular match.

The Current’s effectiveness in this area makes other teams second-guess themselves.

“It was kind of funny in Houston,” Yaxley said with a grin. “The very first corner kick we set up, the Dash set up to defend a short corner, even though we didn’t show a short corner, which was like a win for me.”

Attention to detail on set pieces isn’t just about balls with service into the box. It’s also about successfully retaining possession on throw-ins and winning possession on the opponent’s throw-ins.

Creating mini-games within the game has given the Current’s players the chance to claim small victories along the way.

“We had a really good defensive throw-in game against Houston and the players are really bought into it,” Yaxley said. “They celebrate those little victories, as well.”