CORNER OF THE MONTH

Around the Horn

By Al Mattei

Founder, Top Of The Circle.com

It is not often that this space can borrow from another country in order to bring you our monthly excursion into the frenetic world of the penalty corner.

We did, however, have occasion to see India's penalty corner unit up close in the United States U-21 women's four-nations tournament in the summer of 1999.

As far as we could tell, India used only three different corners: that's about all they needed, since the Chilean defense allowed a number of field goals.

One of the Indian corners is pictured above. The insert is dead-stopped outside the circle, then is passed (yellow arrow) to the right. The lateral pass receiver (the yellow x) has two options which she must see, analyze, and act upon in less than one second.

The option: pass again to the right (blue arrow) for a shot (gray arrow) or shoot right from the inside of the circle (red arrow). Done correctly, the normal path of the ball goes through to the shooter on the right wing, the reverse of the "around-the-horn" double play in baseball.

Rare is the time when the first option -- the red-arrow shot -- is taken. The flyer will have come out far enough to possibly have a play on the ball if the ball-stop is not clean or if the stopper and the lateral pass receiver are too close together.

Naturally, this corner works best on turf. However, with small wrist flips instead of low push passes, the corner should work equally well on grass.