Across the 2024/25 Serie A season, around a quarter of all goals come from set pieces, and a small cluster of teams repeatedly fail to defend corners and free kicks with the organisation that others show. For anyone thinking in terms of “betting against” structural weaknesses rather than form alone, identifying these sides—how many goals they concede this way and why—opens a different angle on markets involving overall goals, first-goal methods, and opponent-specific props.
Why Set-Piece Goals Conceded Matter as a Betting Input
Set-piece defence is one of the most stable weaknesses within a season, because it depends on collective traits—size, aerial ability, marking schemes, and coaching detail—rather than short-term variance alone. Opta’s analysis for a Bologna–Torino matchday notes that while Inter lead Serie A with 17 goals scored from set pieces, Juventus have conceded the highest proportion of their goals from dead balls, with 43% (9 of 21) coming from these situations.
A Reddit summary of The Times’ work on set pieces across top leagues points out that 24% of all Serie A goals in the season come from set plays. In other words, nearly one in four goals originates from corners, free kicks, or throw-ins, so if a team systematically underperforms in that phase, the error is not marginal: it shapes a large segment of the total-goal and result distribution in their matches.
Juventus: High Proportion of Goals Conceded From Set Pieces
Even if Juventus’ overall defensive record remains strong in open play, their set-piece numbers in 2024/25 stand out in a way that invites scrutiny. Opta’s match facts highlight that 43% of all goals conceded by Juventus this season—nine out of 21 at the time of the report—have come from set pieces, the highest proportion in the league.
Tactical analysis of their meeting with Napoli emphasises how aerial and organisational issues underpin that pattern: Napoli struggled to break Juventus down in open play but identified a clear advantage in the air, targeting poorly coordinated marking and exploiting gaps in zonal coverage to generate chances and goals from corners and free kicks. This combination—good open-play defence, disproportionate set-piece concessions—creates matches where the opposition’s best scoring route may not be elaborate moves but well-delivered dead balls.
Other Teams Regularly Exposed at Dead Balls
While Juventus top the proportional chart, other sides show vulnerability once you look at broader defensive metrics and context. Goals-conceded tables for Serie A indicate that clubs like Hellas Verona, Monza, Venezia, and Udinese allow high numbers of goals from shots inside the box, and reports on specific matches against set-piece-strong opponents portray repeated failures in basic marking and clearances.
AS’s breakdown of goals conceded from inside the box shows Monza, Verona, Parma, Venezia, and Udinese all shipping between 52 and 60 goals from close-range shots, implying that they fail to protect high-value areas, including at second balls after set pieces. When combined with league context that identifies Verona and Venezia as heavy set-piece scorers themselves, you get fixtures where both sides can be fragile at defending dead balls, raising the likelihood of set-piece-driven swings rather than purely open-play outcomes.
How to Read “Bet Against” Opportunities From These Weaknesses
Set-piece defensive issues do not automatically translate into profitable bets; they need to interact with the opponent’s strengths and the chosen market. A structured way to think about “betting against” a weak set-piece defence looks like this:
- If Juventus concede a high share of goals from set pieces, backing an opponent with strong aerial power and good delivery (for example, sides known for high set-piece xG) to score at least once becomes more appealing than blanket overs.
- When Verona or Venezia face opponents with well-drilled set-piece routines, markets like “team to score from a set piece” or “method of first goal = header/set piece” may gain probability compared to games involving teams with neutral profiles.
- In matches where both sides are weak in this phase, total-goals markets can be slightly more forgiving because the path to 2 or 3 goals is less dependent on elaborate open-play structures.
These are not automatic triggers but ways to align a specific, quantified weakness with a market that directly reflects that weakness, rather than simply assuming “bad set-piece defence = over 2.5” in all contexts.
Table: Defensive Set-Piece Weakness and Betting Implications
While exact conceded-from-set-piece counts are proprietary, publicly cited proportions and box-concession stats allow for a high-level classification.
| Team | Indicator of weakness | Practical betting implication |
| Juventus | 43% of goals conceded from set pieces (9/21) | Opponent set-piece goal/first-goal method angles |
| Verona | High box goals conceded; bottom-half defence | Extra weight on opponent set-piece threat |
| Venezia | High box concessions with low open-play quality | Small teams’ set pieces can decide tight games |
| Monza/Udinese | Among top teams for inside-box goals conceded | Vulnerable to second-phase set-piece situations |
For “bet against” thinking, Juventus stand out as a big club whose reputational defensive strength can obscure a specific vulnerability, while Verona and Venezia appear among smaller clubs whose broader defensive issues amplify set-piece risks.
UFABET and Turning Set-Piece Defence Data Into Positioning
From a practical angle, knowing which teams concede heavily from set pieces is only useful if the betting workflow turns that knowledge into disciplined market choices. When a bettor uses เว็บตรงต่างประเทศ ufabet as their main betting destination, the most rational approach is to pre-tag certain teams—Juventus, Verona, Venezia—as “set-piece-risk sides” in their own notes, then, when those teams appear on the coupon, check whether special markets on opponent goals, first-goal method, or corner-related props are offered at prices that still assume generic defensive behaviour. In this way, the site becomes a tool to selectively press an identified weakness rather than a place where every game involving those teams automatically triggers a bet, whether justified or not.
When Set-Piece Weakness Stops Being an Edge
There are clear failure modes in treating set-piece defence as a long-term “bet against” opportunity. Coaching staff can address marking schemes quickly once data and video make the weakness impossible to ignore; tactical previews, like the one outlining how Napoli exploited Juventus’ aerial issues, can accelerate those fixes. Once Juventus adjust their defensive setup—changing marking assignments, adding a specialist defender, or altering the goalkeeper’s role—the proportion of set-piece goals conceded can drop sharply.
Another risk lies in market adaptation. As Opta and media outlets highlight specific vulnerabilities, bookmakers adjust prices on relevant specials—“opponent to score from a set piece,” “header goal,” or related props—closing the gap between actual and implied probabilities. At that point, blindly fading a team on set pieces no longer offers value; it merely mirrors the consensus view already baked into odds.
casino online and the Temptation to Overgeneralise Risk Insights
Set-piece analysis trains bettors to look for structural advantages in complex, multi-agent systems, which is genuinely useful in league football. However, when someone steps from that environment into a casino online context, there is a risk of overgeneralising: the habit of finding exploitable patterns can morph into chasing nonexistent “edges” in games built around fixed house percentages and random draws.
Recognising that insights about Juventus’ aerial structure or Verona’s marking do not translate into similar advantages in non-sport products helps keep analytical effort focused where it has leverage. In other words, the more precisely you understand set-piece weaknesses in Serie A, the more cautious you should be about assuming that equally sharp edges exist in environments where you lack comparable, team-level information.
Summary
In the 2024/25 Serie A season, teams like Juventus, Verona, and Venezia exhibit clear structural issues in defending set pieces—Juventus by conceding an unusually high share of their goals from dead balls, and smaller clubs by repeatedly allowing close-range chances after crosses and second balls. Treating those patterns as specialised “bet against” signals, rather than as blanket invitations to back overs, allows more targeted use of method-of-goal and opponent-focused markets, while ongoing tactical adjustments and market reactions set the limits on how long those weaknesses remain exploitable.
