Rules in your own language
Set-piece duty is the job of taking a team's penalties, corners and free kicks, and in fantasy football it is one of the most valuable facts a manager can know about a player. This guide shows how to identify set-piece and penalty takers using match data on RubiScore (https://rubiscore.com), and how to judge whether that duty is secure.
Duty matters because it adds scoring chances that do not depend on open-play form. A midfielder on penalties and corners has a route to points even in matches where his team struggles to create anything from open play.
Penalties are the clearest case. Most expected goals models value a penalty at around three-quarters of a goal, far higher than almost any open-play shot. A player who takes his team's penalties therefore carries an expected output that his open-play numbers do not show.
Corners and wide free kicks work differently. They rarely produce goals for the taker, but they create assist opportunities, because a headed goal from a delivery is credited to the player who took it. Over a season, a high volume of deliveries gives a player a steady stream of assist chances.
Direct free kicks sit at the other extreme. They are scored rarely, so they matter less than their highlight-reel status suggests, but they still add a small amount of value for players who take them regularly.
The workflow uses three types of information that RubiScore publishes for the competitions it covers.
A simple tracking sheet with one row per team and columns for penalties, corners from the left, corners from the right and direct free kicks is enough to organise the information.
Start with penalties, because they carry the most value. For each penalty a team has been awarded in recent matches, record three things: who took it, whether it was scored, missed or saved, and whether the usual taker was on the pitch at the time.
Misses are as important as goals here. A player who misses a penalty was still the designated taker, and that is the information a fantasy manager needs. Looking only at penalty goals on a player profile understates duty for players who have had an unlucky run.
On RubiScore, the match timeline places each penalty in the context of the match, which makes it easy to see whether the regular taker had already been substituted when a teammate stepped up.
Most teams have an order of penalty takers rather than a single name. When the first choice is injured, suspended or substituted, the second choice takes over, and sometimes a third.
A useful way to describe a team is in three tiers:
The first tier is the one that justifies paying a premium. The third tier means the duty adds much less value than it seems, because no single player can be relied on to collect it.
Corners are often split by side. Many teams use a right-footed taker on one flank and a left-footed taker on the other, depending on whether the coach prefers inswinging or outswinging deliveries. Others give one specialist both sides.
Record the taker for each corner where the information is available, separating left from right. A player who takes both sides collects roughly twice the delivery volume of a player who takes only one, which makes a large difference to assist potential over a season.
Free kicks fall into two groups. Those within shooting range may be struck directly at goal, while those from wider or deeper positions are usually crossed into the box like a corner.
The takers are not always the same. A team may have one specialist for direct attempts and another for deliveries. Treat these as two separate duties in the tracking sheet, and give more weight to the delivery role, which produces far more chances over a season than the occasional direct shot.
Duty only has value in proportion to how often the team wins set pieces. A penalty taker in a team that rarely enters the opposition box will have few opportunities, however secure his role.
Check team corner counts and penalties won in the match statistics. Corners accumulate quickly and give a stable picture within a few weeks. Penalties are rarer, so a season-long count is more reliable than a short run. Touches and shots in the penalty area are a useful proxy for how often a team is likely to win penalties in the future.
The most valuable fantasy profile combines secure duty with high team volume: a first-choice penalty taker and corner specialist in a side that spends long periods in the opponent's half.
Set-piece hierarchies are not fixed. They shift for several reasons:
After any of these events, treat the previous hierarchy as provisional until a new pattern appears in the data. Lineups show whether the usual taker is starting, and the timelines show who steps up when the next penalty comes.
Duty is worth nothing if the player is on the bench. Before acting on a set-piece role, confirm that the player is a regular starter and that he usually plays most of the match. A taker who is often substituted around the hour mark will lose some of his late opportunities to a teammate.
Then layer in the fixtures. A run of matches against teams that defend deep tends to produce more corners and more time in the opposition box, which increases set-piece volume for the attacking side.
Consider two hypothetical midfielders at the same fantasy price. Player A has similar open-play numbers to Player B, but the tracking sheet shows that he has taken every penalty his team has won while on the pitch, delivers corners from both sides and starts almost every match. His team also ranks among the higher corner-winning sides in the league.
Player B takes corners from one side only, has never taken a penalty and is often substituted in the second half.
On open-play numbers alone, the two look interchangeable. Once duty and volume are added, Player A has a clear extra route to points: a share of high-value penalty chances and roughly double the delivery opportunities. That gap is exactly what the workflow is designed to expose, and it is invisible in a goals-and-assists column until the points have already been scored.
Before choosing a player for his set-piece value, run through these questions:
Answering these with the timelines, statistics and lineups on RubiScore turns set-piece duty from a guess into a documented, checkable part of every fantasy decision.