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Career Q&A: Thomas Grønnemark, Throw-in Coach

Career Q&A: Thomas Grønnemark, Throw-in Coach

Despite being a promising youth footballer who played against future stars like Thomas Gravesen and Martin Jørgensen, Danish athlete Thomas Grønnemark realised early on that he was unlikely to reach the top as a professional footballer. He therefore decided to transition into other sports, representing the Danish national athletics and bobsleigh teams in the 1990s and 2000s. Having developed a keen interest in the art of throwing over the years, he began constructing a course designed to improve throw-ins in football, an area of the game he recognised was seriously under-developed. 

In 2004, he approached his local Danish club Viborg and landed a new position as throw-in coach. Gradually, the results he got on the pitch persuaded other clubs to employ his services, with a wide range of top clubs employing Grønnemark including Liverpool, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund, Gent, Brentford and FC Midtyjlland.

He's helped contribute to 15 title wins and several other promotion campaigns, becoming the world's only expert throw-in coach and offering his services to coaches and players around the world, via online courses and personal coaching. In this Career Pathway Q&A, we dive deep into this specialist field and why it's so important.

When did you first realise just how under-utilised throw-ins are within football?

"I started as a professional throw-in coach in October 2004, but that was only for long throw-ins. I knew there was potential there and I improved the teams a lot, but my biggest surprise was in 2007 when one of my teams, Silkeborg in the Danish Superliga, played a game and suddenly lost the ball in the middle of the pitch from a throw-in, then did the same again two minutes later, then two minutes after that.

I started watching as many games as I could, in lots of different leagues, and I was totally in shock because most teams lost the ball in more than 50% of throw-ins to players under pressure. And the commentators didn't say anything about it, it was just accepted. That was the key moment when I realised that throw-ins were really important for all teams, not just teams who wanted to use long throw-ins as a set-piece weapon."

What practical things can be done to try to improve ball retention from throw-ins?

"A lot of teams start all their games in training with kick-ins, or from the goalie, or the coach throwing the ball into the pitch. That's a big mistake — you need to start with using throw-ins. Another big mistake is that teams are working the wrong way around, especially with a lot of the new set pieces coaches and experts coming in, they're treating the throw-ins like a corner kick or free kick, saying 'in this zone we have two solutions, the other zone two solutions, the other zone two solutions'. But with that approach, either the opponents' defending pattern (ODP) is standing in the way so you can't do the things you've rehearsed, or the opponents can mark really well.

Arsene Wenger said that a lot of coaches worked the wrong way round, starting with execution instead of starting with perception, awareness, understanding. So I always start with throwing intelligence, that's the first level: scanning, making the right types of runs, having different throw-in tools, and using basic small-sided games. The second level, we go more into the small-sided games, using tool-specific small-sided games, zone-specific small-sided games, and fast throw-in small-sided games — it's not enough to tell players to get the ball fast and throw it, because one of the worst things is to throw fast into a high-pressure zone.

The third level is training players on what you can do with the different zones, practising against different types of defending: zonal defending, man-to-man, opponents marking the thrower, or marking the second central defenders so you can't switch the play. And also on the third level I'll do different kinds of games such as 11v11… it's important that you're not only doing execution, but also awareness and perception."

Why is a holistic approach to throw-in taking so important?

"My coaching is always tailor-made to a club's playing style and formation, but the intensity also depends on when it is in the week… I'm typically coaching on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, it's not like corner or set piece taking the day before a game, because my coaching looks a lot like normal football coaching. Yes, it's a set-piece, but I consider it half-open play. If you get the ball fast, you will have 15-20 seconds of space-creating time if the referee can see you're using it actively.

In this 15-20 seconds, you can create 4, 6, 8 different kinds of spaces, and you shouldn't necessarily pick the first space because that's maybe not the best, so you also have to work on the players' decision-making skills, when and where to throw the ball… I was at Liverpool five years and we scored 10-15 goals from throw-in situations every season, and it was not from long throw-ins, but from the fast- and clever throw-ins.

We scored one goal against Spurs that made people go 'Wow, if you create space there and space there, you can score a goal', but it's not like that — those players used their throw-in intelligence to create many different solutions rather than relying on one thing. It's about awareness, scanning, communication, and awareness of what types of spaces are dangerous."

What kind of working relationship do you have with club set-piece coaches who focus more on corners and free kicks?

"Many of the clubs I work with already have set-piece coaches, but they hire me because traditional set-piece coaches lack knowledge on throw-ins. You have a lot of research and knowledge and experience around free kicks and corners, but what should you do with the throw-ins? I'm coming to clubs and giving them the knowledge.

In 2007 when I realised that all teams were either medium-bad or really bad at throw-ins, I was shocked because you're playing for billions of pounds every year, and you're so bad at throw-ins? It's like having a beautiful Ferrari driving on wooden wheels! Some people think throw-ins are marginal gains, but it's gigantic gains!

There are 40-60 throw-ins per match, you're spending around 20 minutes on throw-in situations. In any other sport, in any other company in the world, you won't see a thing that's that big that's not handled. I love throw-ins, I'm dreaming about throw-ins, and I don't know anyone else in the world who has this passion! My biggest goal is to change throw-ins so we have better throw-ins, not just in the pro game but in youth and amateur too."

You've named Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson as the two best throw-in takers you've worked with. What sets them apart?

"If I'm talking about the best throwers I'd divide it into two parts. With the long throw-in, it's about how far, how flat, how precise you can throw… but the other bit that's harder to see is players like Trent and Robbo, they have really good decision-making skills, sometimes they'd throw really fast but sometimes they waited.

They were good at throwing precise; sometimes you want it to feet, sometimes you want it in front of you or into space to run into, and this combination of precision and decision-making, they were really good at. Even though they improved their throw-in length they were not the longest throwers in the world, it was their decision-making and intelligence that made them really good, and their teammates who were really good at creating space."

Over the years, how has your work been impacted by developments in the type of data available to you?

"For me, it's not so much the data itself; I'm improving my players' long throw-ins, typically by 5-10 metres, and giving advice around strategies they can use… While I think data is fantastic for football, there's also lots of what I call ugly data. For example, analysing all throw-ins and saying how much possession you have, the problem with that is that you also measure the no-pressure throw-ins.

When teams stand low, you have a lot of throw-ins to the central defenders who are not under pressure, and this no-pressure throw-in doesn't say anything about how good you are at throw-ins, even if the statistics about keeping possession from throw-ins look impressive. So I always analyse pressure throw-ins.

I've also seen data about 'How good is this team at hitting a teammate with the throw-in?' and of course if you want to keep possession it's always good to throw to a teammate, but if it hits you directly in the chest at 300 kilometres an hour, is that positive? I've also seen analysis about if you throw the ball backwards, there's a bigger chance of keeping the ball… and if you throw it forward you have the least chance of keeping the ball. But that doesn't say anything, because you haven't considered the quality of the throws going forward.

This data doesn't take into consideration that if you're throwing backwards you will often have less pressure, or it's easier to keep the ball, and if you're concluding that you can't throw it forward, you're limiting yourselves. Sometimes, I don't care that we have possession because I also look into the risk-reward factor.

If we have a throw-in in the middle of the pitch and a full-back gets the ball fast, sees a run from a winger, knows this player is fast and is running into a good space, and throws it, this is low-risk, high-reward because there's a good chance you'll get something out of it, either a good chance, a goal, maybe a new throw-in 30 metres further forward, and also if you lose the ball the opponents have 80, 100 metres to your goal, so it's low risk. So if I see this in a match, even if possession is lost, it's positive. It's really important to be subjective in your throw-in analysis."

Is there a tendency amongst coaches and players to always aim for the player with the most space around them, and if so do you have to persuade them to take calculated risks in the right moments?

"Big spaces can lure you into bad decisions. A lot of teams automatically throw backward, even when they have a player in space 30 metres up the pitch - no! It could be that your nearest central defender has a lot of space but that could be a trap, because if you throw to the nearest central defender you might not get much from that — you have to look at the body language of the opponents."

What are the main courses and teaching you're offering at the moment?

"I just put the prices down for my online courses. Previously, I had a team helping me who said 'You have to have high ticket prices, that's how you sell an online business' but I wasn't happy about it because my biggest goal is to help amateur and youth coaches who can't always hire me to come and visit. The sales were good and the feedback was good, but I wanted this to be available for all coaches in the world. Now, the price of My three-in-one Mastery online course is down to 25% of what it was, to  €197, which is crazy cheap.

The first course is long throw-in technique training, with video courses, examples and coaches, teaching your players to throw further with better technique and correcting the technical mistakes by the players. The second course is the fast and clever throw-in training, which includes some of the basic throw-in tools, some of the basic space creation, awareness, small-sided games, fast throwing, and how you can use blocks and screens in normal throw-ins. The third part of Mastery is about throw-in zones and tactics training; here I'm teaching about small-sided games that are so specific, both for warm-ups and for high intensity. I'm talking about the three different zones, also with different types of defending, and then there's also the long throw-in strategy or tactics. 

There's also a possibility to hire me online to give advice; I've been successfully coaching around 40 professional teams and national teams, so I can give direct advice to people, I can also do match analysis where you can send the throw-ins from a match and get video feedback from me. The third type of product is the club visits, and I have different prices depending on the level of the club — every club that wants to prioritise throw-ins can afford it. It's not cheap to bring me to the club but the proof of the value they're getting is the 15 titles I've been a part of, the many promotions, the teams punching above their weight. I want to make the biggest change possible in the football world."

If you want to find out more about Thomas Grønnemark's work, check out his website here: https://throwinacademy.com/