Parma's Throw-In Dominance:

Applying Premier League insights to Italian football reveals one team is miles ahead

My last post was about how Serie A teams use and produce value from set pieces — but I deliberately didn't include throw-ins. That's because in the first months of this season, they were a major talking point in the Premier League, and many analysts wrote about long throws specifically (1, 2, 3, 4).

If you read my previous analysis, you could see I replicated a lot of the work that Hudl/StatsBomb produced for the end of the 2023/24 season. So today, I'm applying exactly that framework to Serie A 2025/26 throw-ins to see what's happened so far, and if any team seems to be extracting real value from them.

Spoiler: Parma, managed by ex-Arteta assistant manager Carlos Cuesta, is using them the most to produce goals. And you can see that in the first visualization.

ANOTHER SPOILER: If you want to see other leagues or deep more into Serie A I’ve created my first ever Web App, and you can have fun at this link. Don’t be greedy and share the link.

Parma's Box-Focused Approach

The pattern holds true if we focus on just throw-ins into the box — there's no other team in Italy that throws the ball into the box nearly as much as Parma.

And they are the team most focused on throwing long. They have the highest 75th percentile length of throw-ins, and they throw into the box at the highest percentage of all Serie A teams when in the final third of the pitch.

Spatial Patterns: Left vs. Right

That happens most often on the left rather than on the right side of the pitch, where they also just play around the box instead.

The Throwers: Lautaro Valenti Leads the Way

There's therefore no surprise in finding out that 4 Parma players are in the top 15 of players with the longest 75th percentile throws. With Lautaro Valenti being by far the most consistent long thrower, as his average throw length is also the highest in Serie A.

Room for Improvement: First Contact Percentage

Interestingly, Parma is not in the top 10 for percentage of first contacts won on long throws into the box, which suggests there's room for improvement for them—especially given they're by far the best team in Serie A at producing shots from this part of the game.

VAEP Value Analysis: A Surprising Split

Still interesting is that Parma is not the team that produces the most value—in terms of value of possession calculated via the Atomic VAEP model—when it comes to the difference between the value of the throw-in and the value of the most valuable action in a 5-second window from the throw-in.

However, they are the leaders if we remove throw-ins into the box, which seems really surprising and deserves attention if you're interested in that for whatever reason. Without having done that type of dive, I'd assume it's because they don't win that many first contacts on throw-ins into the box.

Inter and Lazio: The Versatile Approach

What I'd like to underline is that Inter and Lazio are both in the top 5 for possession value with their throw-ins and in the top 10 for xG per throw-in (Inter 3rd and Lazio 8th), while also being the two teams that keep the ball the longest after a throw-in in the final third. This suggests the ability to do multiple things with this particular part of the game, while not focusing exclusively on producing goals from it.

Closing Thoughts: The Underrated Set Play

Throw-ins remain one of the most underrated aspects of football, despite happening dozens of times per match. While everyone was talking about long throws in the Premier League earlier this season, Parma has quietly been implementing the same tactical approach in Serie A thanks to Arsenal influence — and doing it better than anyone else here.

The Carlos Cuesta effect is real. Between the set piece analysis from my last post and now this throw-in deep dive, it's clear that Parma has a dedicated, systematic approach to dead ball situations that's producing tangible results.

What's particularly interesting is the different philosophies we see: Parma going for directness and goal creation, while Inter and Lazio use throw-ins as part of a broader possession and chance-creation strategy. Both approaches have merit, and both are extracting value that many teams simply leave on the table.

Let me know what you think, and if there are other underrated aspects of the game you'd like me to explore next.

Until next time!