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It was during last season's pre-season tour of Germany that Leeds United realised they had a wizard on their hands.
After their sessions, the players took part in some mini competitions. Who had the longest throw? Who took the best free-kicks?
It’s safe to say Daniel Farke had not paid Hoffenheim £17.4million last year for Anton Stach, a 6ft 4in defensive midfielder, for his dead-ball proficiency. Stach did not score a single free-kick in his four years in the Bundesliga, and only ever attempted one effort on goal from one for Hoffenheim. Farke signed him to keep his newly promoted team in the Premier League with his no-nonsense physicality, his ability to win duels and break up play in midfield.
Only, here he was, this giant of a man, firing them in like Ian Harte. Club staff watching on wide-eyed. What do we have here? He took the best corners too. Shouldn’t we have a bloke this tall in the box trying to win headers, they wondered? Not when his deliveries were as enticing as this.
What they had, so it turns out, is one of the best set-piece takers in the Premier League. His late winner at Nottingham Forest on the opening weekend was his fourth league goal from a free-kick since he joined. Only Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai can boast as many.
Yet what’s been the most remarkable is quite how deadly he is. Stach’s scored four free-kicks, but he’s only shot from ten of them. A small sample size, of course, but Stach is, by some distance, the most efficient since Opta records began in 2003 of anyone to have attempted as many shots from free-kicks as him. Szoboszlai, by contrast, has taken 27 shots for his four goals.
Anton Stach's late winning goal at Nottingham Forest for Leeds was the latest example of his superb free-kick prowess
The dipping, long-range strike left Forest's Matz Sels grasping at thin air
The 27-year-old Germany midfielder is approaching cult status at Elland Road
James Ward-Prowse, who sits one behind David Beckham’s Premier League record of 18 free-kick goals, has attempted 141, a strike rate of 12 per cent. Stach's is 40 per cent.
His first gem came against Wolves at the start of his debut campaign, when he whipped the ball over the wall from a central area and into the top right corner to put Leeds ahead in a 3-1 victory.
The next three have all come from wide on the left and bamboozled the keeper: a stoppage-time curler against Crystal Palace where Dean Henderson didn’t move a muscle, another from miles out against Aston Villa where Emi Martinez thought he was about to cross the ball into the crowded box only for Stach to send it whistling inside the near post, before his winner from the corner of the penalty area against Forest which Matz Sels could only palm into the net.
'A clear technical quality that Stach has is that he gets a clean contact on the ball,' specialist ball-striking coach Bartek Sylwestrzak, who has worked with numerous Premier League players, told Daily Mail Sport. 'When you look at most players attempting shots with the inside of the foot over the wall, their connections are usually quite average. The strikes are often weak and the ball speed is relatively slow.
'Stach, however, strikes the ball quite cleanly, and this translates into good ball speed. He is capable of taking shots from longer ranges, as he did against Villa. Many free-kick takers wouldn’t attempt that because they wouldn’t trust their shot.
'With regard to the spin of the ball, he is mostly an "inside spinner', but he’s got a little bit of forward spin as well. If you look at his goal against Palace, he hit it over the wall and it still came down. Top spin gives a huge advantage. If you don’t put top spin on the ball, you rely on gravity to bring the ball down, so players have to reduce the power of the shot to hit the target.
'The ability to put top spin on the ball is one of the main reasons Juninho Pernambucano is still the best free-kick taker in the history of the game. He could combine forward spin with a very high power output. Stach is decent, but there is a lot of potential for him to get even better.'
Practice, it seems, is making perfect. Stach often stays after training to hone his lethal skill, sometimes with assistant coach Edmund Riemer if Leeds are working on set-piece routines but it’s often just himself, a ball, and a goalkeeper.
Stach often stays after training to hone his lethal skill, sometimes with assistant coach Edmund Riemer if Leeds are working on set-piece routines but it’s often just himself, a ball, and a keeper
'Stach is decent, but there is a lot of potential for him to get even better'
Stach is bringing free-kicks back into fashion after a steady decline in recent years
Stach is bringing free-kicks back into fashion after a steady decline in recent years, with the rise of analytics and Expected Goals, of not just goals from free-kicks but teams even bothering to shoot at all.
‘The art of free-kicks is kind of being lost to the system a bit,’ one performance director at a top Premier League told Daily Mail Sport last year. ‘Set-pieces can turn games so you want to do things that statistically give you a better chance of scoring than a player trying to wrap it into the top corner from 30 yards. It just doesn’t make as much sense to go direct like Beckham in the old days.’
Only 11 direct free-kicks were scored in the whole of the 2023-24 campaign, and just 13 the following season, and a mini bump to 18 last season. In 2013-14, it was nearly 40.
'The thinking is not, "Let’s improve free-kicks and score from them",' adds Sylwestrzak. The thinking is, "Let’s just not shoot". But a direct free-kick is a very good goalscoring opportunity, and well-trained players can make the most of it.'
And yet we’ve already seen two scored in the Premier League on opening weekend with Stach’s winner as well as Nilson Angulo’s strike for Sunderland against Ipswich. Early days once again, but it feels like there’s been a little uptick. Eight sides had at least one attempt on goal from a free-kick in their first match.
‘I remember magic free-kick takers: Juninho, who got this crazy curve on the ball,’ said Farke after Stach’s winner at the City Ground. ‘It is always a major part of the game, not just nowadays. Anton is perhaps not as beautiful on the eye like Juninho’s free-kicks, but b****y effective, and I quite like it.’ No wonder.
