In the beginning there was Gianni Vio — a bank clerk who dreamed of coaching, wrote his thesis on set pieces, and became perhaps the world’s first true specialist in dead-ball situations, rising to prominence in Italy’s triumph at Euro 2021. Then there was Maurizio Sarri, nicknamed “Mister 33” in his amateur coaching days because he once told his Sansovino side they had exactly 33 set-piece schemes available. And there was the Napoli of Spalletti’s third Scudetto, in which dead-ball situations produced 24 goals — including a record 17 from corners across the 2022-23 top-five European leagues.
Set pieces now account for approximately 30% of all goals scored across elite European football. After years in which Juventus trailed their rivals in this specific tactical dimension, they have finally found the formula. And the evidence from the opening five Serie A matchdays is striking.
The Numbers — the Best Among the Big Clubs
Of Juventus’s eight Serie A goals in the first five matches, three arrived directly from dead-ball situations — a rate of 37.5%. More tellingly, 40% of Juventus’s expected goals this season — the xG figure that most accurately reflects their attacking quality — derives from set-piece situations. It is the highest proportion among all of Serie A’s top clubs. For comparison: Napoli have converted 2 of their 7 goals (29%) from dead balls; Inter 4 of 15 (27%); Como 2 of 9 (22%); Roma just 1 of 14 (7%); Milan a remarkable zero from ten.
The Sassuolo match — the one competitive defeat of the season — provided its own perverse proof of the system’s potency. Manager Alberto Aquilani was sufficiently alarmed by Juventus’s corner threat that he deliberately left four players permanently on the halfway line during every Juventus corner against him, forcing the centre-backs to abandon their attacking runs entirely and forfeiting numerical superiority in their own box. An entire tactical preparation built around preventing Bremer from attacking a corner.
The Man Responsible — Giovanni Martusciello
When Bremer headed home Juventus’s second goal against Atalanta on Sunday, every member of the coaching staff and the bench immediately turned and directed their celebration towards one man: Giovanni Martusciello, Spalletti’s longstanding assistant and the figure who — having inherited the dead-ball preparation role from Daniele Baldini, who did not follow the manager to the Continassa — has become the architect of the system that is making Juventus’s set pieces a genuine and consistent attacking weapon.
The name will be recognised by supporters of both Juventus and Lazio, where Martusciello served as Sarri’s assistant coach — the deputy to the manager who was himself nicknamed “Mister 33” for the precision and volume of his set-piece preparation. The lineage is unmistakable: from Sarri’s amateur days counting his schemes through Euro 2021 and Napoli’s record-breaking corner season, the specialist tradition in Italian football set-piece preparation runs directly through the man now standing in the Continassa’s coaching team.
The Full Picture — Delivery, Movement, and One Sublime Piece of History
The work Martusciello has overseen does not limit itself to corners and free kicks. Its most extraordinary expression came last season, in the match at Lecce, when Vlahović scored a goal directly from the kick-off — twelve seconds, a precisely prepared sequence, a goal that took everyone outside the dressing room entirely by surprise.
The delivery options available at Juventus give the system exceptional variety. Douglas Luiz, Zhegrova, Conceição, and Koopmeiners provide multiple different set-piece delivery options across different flight paths and pace. Bremer, González, and McKennie provide the aerial threat at the end of those deliveries — and the two goals Bremer has scored in Serie A this season have both arrived from precisely designed corner routines. With Juventus’s open-play attackers still seeking their first Serie A goals of the campaign, the set piece has become not merely a supplement to their attacking play but, for now, its most reliable and most productive expression. The “corner bomber” — as Gazzetta puts it with characteristic wit — has been rediscovered. And he is wearing number 3.
