SAMARA, Russia—It was the night before the Super Bowl, and sitting courtside at the New Orleans Pelicans vs. Minnesota Timberwolves game was a man who had traveled all the way from England with his mind intensely focused on another global sports event: the World Cup.

There has never been anyone more interested in a Pelicans vs. Timberwolves matchup than England manager Gareth Southgate.

Southgate bombarded his companions with detailed inquiries about strategy, arena operations and even Crunch, the wolf mascot. Chris Wright, the chief executive of the local MLS team Minnesota United, was stunned by his curiosity about this sport that’s about as British as sauerkraut.

“Here’s this English guy, the England team manager, trying to figure out Basketball 101,” Wright said.

But these are strange days for England. They have emerged as a serious contender at the World Cup. They lucked into the weaker half of the knockout bracket. They play Colombia on Tuesday for a spot in the quarterfinals. And they can attribute some of their unlikely success in soccer to basketball.


Wright was delighted when the Football Association contacted him before Southgate’s visit to the Super Bowl in Minnesota. He is English himself, which is why he wasn’t expecting this request from the manager: “Is there any way we can go to the Wolves game?”

England manager Gareth Southgate, left, speaks with Gary Cahill during a match. Photo: Tim Goode/PA Wire/Zuma Press

There was a reason that he was so eager for this outing, and it wasn’t Crunch. On the ride to the arena, Southgate told colleagues that he was especially curious about how NBA teams created space around the basket. He thought there might be something he could steal.

Was there any way he could apply the principles of NBA plays—the pick-and-rolls, the off-ball screens, the constant movement—to the English national soccer team?

There are precious few moments in every soccer match when a manager can actually choreograph the action by designing a play. They’re called set pieces, and for many years, they were better known in England as a bloody disaster.


All of which makes England’s set pieces at this World Cup nothing short of a national miracle.

Their six goals on set plays were the most of any country in the group stage. But there’s a better comparison than England vs. the world: England vs. England. They have scored four goals on corners and free kicks so far. They scored four goals on corners and free kicks in the previous three World Cups combined.

“On set plays, we’re a real threat,” Southgate said. “We’ve identified that as a key area in tournaments and a key area we felt we could improve on.”

England's Harry Kane scores a goal from the penalty spot past Panama's Jaime Penedo. Photo: carlos barria/Reuters

England’s ineptitude on set plays before Southgate’s hiring in 2016 was a bigger national drama than Brexit.


At the time, England star Harry Kane took their corners and free kicks, one of the many questionable tactical decisions that eventually cost Roy Hodgson his job. That paved the way for the unproven Southgate, a retired player whose prior managing experience included a stint with the country’s youth team and three seasons with a middling English Premier League club that was relegated under his watch. Southgate was an improbable choice, and he was given the job only after Sam Allardyce was fired in disgrace.

Southgate now looks like the manager who might be able to solve England’s problem of face-planting in spectacular fashion at the worst possible time. His inventive schemes have benefited one player in particular: Harry Kane. In England’s opening World Cup win against Tunisia, Kane slammed home a header on a corner kick in the 91st minute to avoid an embarrassing draw. It was his second goal of that match: Kane had already scored on another corner kick.

But the clearest example of how England implements basketball strategies on their set plays was a corner kick during their 6-1 blowout of Panama in the group stage.

John Stones scores off a corner kick for England.

It started with Kieran Trippier’s bending corner. Once the ball was in the air, two English players cleared out the center of the box, almost like they were 3-point shooters flaring away from the basket. Meanwhile, at the top of the box, Ashley Young threw his body into the defender guarding John Stones long enough for Stones to get free in the middle of the box and head the cross for a goal.


It was a primitive basketball play: the back-screen. And it worked to perfection.

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It’s not like Gareth Southgate invented the pick play in soccer. But even he said, through an England spokesman, that he was influenced by what he saw watching basketball. The people who sat next to him that night were not surprised.

“In areas where he was specifically interested,” Wright said, “he wanted to go deep.”

Southgate had already proven by this point that he was not afraid to seek out ideas in unorthodox places. He entrusted his assistant, Allan Russell, with England’s set pieces, for example, even though the last teams that Russell had coached were the Carolina RailHawks and Orange County Blues, minor-league clubs in the soccer hinterlands otherwise known as the United States.

Southgate is not the first soccer manager to study basketball for inspiration.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, who happens to be the coach of the English Premier League champion and the most dominant team in global soccer at the moment, has long been intrigued by the NBA. He attended a Finals game in 2016 wearing a LeBron James uniform, and he has utterly befuddled English reporters by citing the Golden State Warriors in his press conferences.

(This being England, of course, Southgate watched not the Cavs or Warriors but the Timberwolves and Pelicans. Neither team has ever won an NBA championship.)

There’s an obvious similarity between a corner kick in soccer and the pick-and-roll in basketball. The whole point is to create enough vertical air space for a header or dunk. But what basketball plays and soccer set pieces really have in common—the reason that Guardiola paid careful attention to the NBA—is they are both an opportunity to seize a small advantage, said Philadelphia 76ers vice president Daniel Medina, who worked under Guardiola at FC Barcelona.

“He used to look at not only basketball, but other sports like handball and indoor football,” Medina said. “Similar collective ideas with different constraints can lead to different solutions.”

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Which is why Southgate was so inquisitive at the Pelicans vs. Timberwolves game.

“He was the one asking questions all night,” said Ben Grossman, a Minnesota United minority owner.

“Like I’m Tom Thibodeau,” Wright said.

Southgate had so many questions about how everything from how offenses create space to how defenses protect the basket that he stayed long after the game was over. Grossman realized when they finally left that Southgate was not at the NBA game simply to have a good time. He was there to work.

“I know this is going to sound a little silly, but I actually left that night expecting England to do well in the World Cup;” he said. “You could just tell the way he went about his business that he was going to leave no stone unturned.”

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Write to Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com and Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com