Soccer is a game of moments. Ninety-plus minutes of action often boil down to just a few key sequences and are decided by which team capitalizes on them, and which team doesn’t. 

Getting to the top of any league table, then, means consistently creating and being decisive in those moments. It also means being able to create those crucial moments in a variety of different ways.

For Canadian Premier League leaders Cavalry FC, set-pieces have been one of the key ways they have created chances and goals this year. They have now scored 12 goals in their last 10 matches from dead-ball situations, and are unbeaten during that stretch.

“We work on them every week,” said Cavalry head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. earlier in the season. “[Assistant coach] Leon Hapgood does a lot of our attacking set plays and movement, and looking at the opposition, and the opposition changes and sometimes you do have to read and react. In this league, a league of parity, it does come down to [set-pieces].” 

The first thing that sets Cavalry apart in the set-piece department is just simply the quality of the players they have. José Escalante, Ben Fisk and Ali Musse are all among the best in the league at dead-ball deliveries, and so Cavalry is instantly dangerous nearly every time one of these players is standing over a dead ball. 

Cavalry lead the league in goals from direct free-kicks with three so far this season, including back-to-back games where Escalante has scored in brilliant fashion:

But it isn’t just the set-piece deliveries that set Cavalry apart, it is slightly tweaking where those deliveries come from. Here, below, is one such clever sequence recently against Pacific. Fisk plays the indirect free-kick short to Escalante.

Escalante then fakes like he is going to send the ball back to Fisk on the overlap, which caused momentary hesitation from Pacific’s Gianni Dos Santos. This affords Escalante the space to cut in on his left foot and send in a delivery from a far more dangerous position than the original free-kick spot. Klomp then scores on the excellent delivery.

This can look different depending on which opponent Cavalry matches up against. The Cavs have been brilliant this season at tailoring their game plan to the style of their opponent, and set-pieces are no different. 

Wheeldon Jr. said earlier in the season that the club spends significant time each week looking at how they have had set-piece success against a team previously and how that opponent set up against them. They then make tweaks to their strategy so that they do not become predictable.

As he did in that quote earlier, he has given special credit to assistant coach and technical director Leon Hapgood for the work he has done on set-pieces this season. Players as well have mentioned individual instructions that Hapgood has given them that have led to goals.

Here is an example of that in action against Halifax earlier in the season. They knew Halifax had several bigger central defenders who would be difficult to compete against aerially, so they crowded the box to create confusion. This allows Daan Klomp to win a header, and then the traffic in the box gives Myer Bevan the chance to fool Christian Oxner. 

Other clubs are well aware of the dangers that Cavalry present from set-pieces, but as Wanderers coach Stephen Hart said earlier in the season, it isn’t always easy to prevent. 

“If we could limit the amount of set plays that would be nice,” said Hart. “But that is very difficult to do in a game.” 

Cavalry have actually won the least amount of fouls of any team in the league. But only Valour have a higher non-penalty set-piece xG total than their 5.65. 

The next time they played Halifax, they tweaked their strategy slightly. This time Fisk plays a ball to Karifa Yao away from the main cluster of Halifax defenders. Yao then heads the ball into the path of Aribim Pepple, who finishes the chance brilliantly. 

Pepple said after that match that Hapgood specifically instructed him to be around this area in the box on free kicks, as the ball would find its way there. This is a sequence that the club would later repeat against Valour in a 4-2 win on June 15, this time with Klomp finding Mason Trafford from Escalante’s delivery.

As the season has progressed, the club has gotten every more creative in their set-piece routines. To date, their fourth goal against Valour is probably Cavalry’s pièce de résistance.

This brilliantly choreographed routine starts with Joe Mason in an offside position. Before Escalante delivers the ball, the Cavalry attacker runs onside, in front of the valour defensive line, and flicks the ball over top of them. Pepple is then on hand to finish off the chance.

As the season goes on, and Cavalry gets more time on the training pitch, perhaps we see even more unique and creative set-pieces like this.

All of this time spent on set-pieces has made them reasonably solid defensively in this area as well. Cavalry has only allowed five goals from non-penalty set-pieces in 2022. Four of those have come from corner kicks, with Pacific becoming the first and only side to score on them from a free-kick, with Alejandro Diaz heading home on an indirect effort for the final goal of their June 30 3-3 draw.

“Especially in this league the games are always tight so you know one set-piece can change the game,” said Pepple after scoring off of a free-kick in a 1-0 win over HFX on June 11, later adding “We all know the importance of set-pieces, It has gotten us [multiple] points this year, and it can be the difference between making the playoffs or not.”

For Cavalry, set-pieces have certainly been a difference-maker this year. While other clubs will continue to try to limit their effectiveness going forward, like in many other areas of their game the Cavs have shown a level of creativity and adaptability to remain dangerous.

Dead balls have been giving Cavalry life this season; they’re a major factor behind their club record-breaking unbeaten run and place at the top of the table.