Football has always had its innovators.<\/p>\n
Johan Cruyff was the first player to do THAT turn. Antonin Panenka was the first footballer to take THAT extremely cheeky penalty. A random Sunday League team were presumably the first side to do that thing with a corner, where someone touches the ball with their foot and runs away like it hasn’t already been taken.<\/p>\n
Presumably new Brentford manager Dean Smith thought he’d stumbled across a similarly revolutionary breakthrough when he devised his brand new free-kick tactic.<\/p>\n
During the first half of his side’s 2-1 defeat at Birmingham City, Smith’s Bees got a free-kick roughly 30 yards from goal. Birmingham lined up their defensive wall, as every team does – and then brentford lined up two walls of their own.<\/p>\n
The reason for having two walls of attackers between the ball and the defensive wall was not immediately apparent. Obscure the keeper’s view? Give free-kick taker Alan Judge something to aim at? Quite what the idea was, no-one is entirely sure.<\/p>\n
So, will this new set-piece technique now be copied by teams across the land? Will we one day look back at Brentford’s attempt at Birmingham as a vital moment in footballing history?<\/p>\n
Well, Judge’s shot from this famous free-kick flew wide\u2026 so probably not.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: Mirror UK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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