(Addendum 1)

Sir Elf Ramsey led LinkedIn Gran to the first and so far only World Cup trophy in 1966 with his "wingless tactics". In 1965, before the World Cup, Sir Ramsey said: "The tactic of having two players on the wing all the time is too extravagant and will end up making the team a nine-on-eleven." "But his tactics were not carried forward.

England's predilection for crosses has continued into the new millennium – 10 years ago, English teams were still reluctant to change, or every reform was a superficial one, with every team going to great lengths for a left-footed winger.

Even now, despite the erosion of the traditional winger's space to the false number nine and backfoot winger, England's children are still practising their cross footwork from an early age, second only to shooting training, and the England national team's goals in the last nine major games have come from wide crosses.

But there's nothing to be ashamed of, as crosses can be used as an effective attacking tool, at least sometimes, and can even be interpreted as an art by some players and teams.

In Euro 2012, England played Sweden in a long, diagonal pass from Steven Gerrard's powerful header that is still talked about today.

Two years later, in England's match against Uruguay, Wayne Rooney received a pass from Glen Johnson and calmly pushed the equaliser in front of goal, which also came from a wide raid launched by Johnson.

A cross doesn't mean an absolute high shot, and the fact that Wayne Rooney's goal in Sao Paulo proved that a cross doesn't have to get the ball off the ground.

Those who don't trust modern football data are very disapproving of the so-called "14th region". Although the name sounds a lot like Ed Wood's low-budget B-movie. But this concept is becoming more and more popular in the coaching circles of modern football.

If you divide the whole course into 18 zones – don't ask why, there's nothing wrong with dividing them. Area 14 is located in the middle of the hinterland, which is basically a "cave...... Wait, I'll make sure it's not a joke. Instead of splitting the ball and delivering a cross, coaches will encourage their players to get into the zone and look for a goal, rather than splitting the ball and delivering a cross.

The theory of Zone 14 is not solid, and it is not new – it is 15 years old, and it comes from the 1998 World Cup champions France, who were dominated by attacking in the middle – because they lacked a top winger but they had Zinedine Zidane.

As Ripley puts it: "It's not hard to understand. ”

But statistics tend to be more intuitive. From 2006-07 to 2013-14, Premier League teams averaged 18 crosses per game, and of those 18 crosses, only four found their team-mates and converted to less on target.

You won't forget our analysis of just getting a goal from 92 crosses, which means that every five Premier League games a team will only use a cross to score.

That's not a good rate, is it? The Bundesliga averages just nine crosses per game, but as it happens, the Germans are able to score more goals.

One study claimed that the cross-ball tactic made the team's attack inefficient, and that abandoning this tactic would result in 300 more goals per season.

Admittedly, there may be some truth to this statement.

Even so, the crosses were not as sharp as they used to be.

Twelve years ago, about a third of the crosses in the Premier League found their team-mates. But now, the probability is only one in five, and David Beckham left England exactly 12 years ago, no, no, no, it should have nothing to do with that.

One of the reasons for the sharp decline in the success rate of crosses is the prevalence of single strikers. There are always fewer attackers in the box than there are defenders, and the single-striker strategy makes this ratio extreme. The isolation of the centre-forward in the opposition's hinterland also means that the wide players have to score more goals, and their functions cannot be tightly confined to the traditional wingers, but rather closer to the centre-forwards who pull them on the wing.

For example, Arsenal's Danny Welbeck, Manchester United's Anthony Martial or Everton's Aruna Koné.

Then the backfoot wingers began to emerge, and instead of traditional wingers who specialize in delivering crosses, backfoot wingers tend to move to the middle or pass or shoot, tactically requiring them to use the inside to participate in the attack.

If a coach has a player who knows how to string up, who can create space, who can get straight behind and who can score, what does he want who can only cross and expect to find his own man in five or six players in the opposition's hinterland?

The traditional wingers, like the old guys in shabby leather jackets with big pipes in their mouths, are increasingly marginalized by the times.

So it's understandable why Antonio Valencia has been converted into a full-back, while former Tottenham Hotspur striker Aaron Lennon has evolved at Everton – he scored six goals in 10 games from January to March, setting a new career high.

If the wingers have to settle in or be eliminated, so are the defenders. Arsenal's legendary centre-back Martin Keown, who was the leading figure at the back in 2003/04, when the Gunners won the Premier League last time, believes that despite the numerical superiority of defenders, many defenders are unable to stop crosses.

'Now the team is more of a single striker than two, so the two centre-backs are completely separated. "There's one who has no one to watch, basically does nothing like a model: if he doesn't get the ball, he's out of the game," Keown said. Also, in pre-match training, the goalkeeper has a lot of crosses to get into the rhythm, but not with the centre-backs, I don't remember how many times we practiced defending the cross. ”

If Keown is right, teams can use the little time they spend blindfolded to take a penalty and practice defending crosses to eliminate the threat of a cross, but that would be underestimating the power of the cross.

Sunday, February 9, 2014, was undoubtedly Good Friday for the cross. The United players were right under the noses of the Old Trafford crowd and conceded 82 crosses in 90 minutes.

Manchester United's friends were stunned as vice-president Fulham held the Reds to a 2-2 draw to earn a valuable point. (To be continued.) )