[Football] Scoring direct from a free kick

[Giraffe]

Is it just me or is this virtually dead. It wasn’t that long ago that they seemed to be flying in all the time in football. But now it so rarely happens. I thought it was just us, but other teams also have terrible direct free kicks. Even Ronaldo doesn’t do it anymore. Is it the ball? Is it better defending? What?

 

[The Optimist]

Has the rule about the attacking team not interfering with wall had an affect?

 

[Swansman]

Never been common, teams usually average about 2 direct free kick goals per season. Possible it has decreased even more now when there is data showing how utterly inefficient it is to shoot from free kicks compared to pretty much any other option.

 

[Baldseagull]

Is it just me or is this virtually dead. It wasn’t that long ago that they seemed to be flying in all the time in football. But now it so rarely happens. I thought it was just us, but other teams also have terrible direct free kicks. Even Ronaldo doesn’t do it anymore. Is it the ball? Is it better defending? What?

Ronaldo has never had a better than average success rate from direct free kicks, and was even worse at Juventus, I wouldn't let him take shots at goal from free kicks if I was his manager.

 

[mothy]

James ward prowse is OK at free kicks

 

[A1X]

They all try the dip with power. Ward Prowse still employs the curl, and that seems to be better.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Ward Prowse is indeed the best current exponent in the PL. but even he, has only scored 12 of them, in best part of a decade in the league. It’s a hard thing to get right.

 

[Stato]

Did you miss Trippier's on Tuesday night?

 

[VAL1850]

David Lopez "What actually does he do".....

 

[Comrade Sam]

It's a bit like the corner debate last season. Compared with how many corners the average team get, the goal ratio is pretty poor. On the continent it is often considered more important to keep your shape in case of a counter attack, as a corner still leaves the defending side with the advantage of more men and a big guy that can use his hands. However, almost from the moment I started bandying about that wisdom, we started banging them in. I seem to remember Bissouma scoring a scorching free kick in his friendly debut, but now I always assume we'll miss and the opposition will score from free kicks.

 

[Weststander]

Seems like a dip in numbers to me, following a renaissance up to 2017.


2020/21 - just 13.

A question - are teams now obsessive about targeting headed goals from freekicks instead?

 

[Taybha]

Probably due to the cunning plan of having a player lay down behind the wall, I've no stats to back this up but I expect a fair few used to be scored as the wall jumped and the ball went underneath the wall, so with the player laying down those low free kicks have died out.

 

[Yoda]

Probably due to the cunning plan of having a player lay down behind the wall, I've no stats to back this up but I expect a fair few used to be scored as the wall jumped and the ball went underneath the wall, so with the player laying down those low free kicks have died out.

I doubt it, they seemed to be as rare as rocking horse crap

 

[The Optimist]

How good was David Beckham at direct free kicks? My memory says amazing but perhaps he didn’t really score as many as I think.

 

[The Optimist]

To answer my own question he scored 18 direct free kicks over 8 full seasons at Man Utd (and for all I know might not have been on free kick taking duty in the first few seasons).

 

[Machiavelli]

They all try the dip with power. Ward Prowse still employs the curl, and that seems to be better.

Many can do the curl, but only a few (JWP, Beckham, ...?) can do curl and whip which is the devastating combination.

 

[Nixonator]

Is it just me or is this virtually dead. It wasn’t that long ago that they seemed to be flying in all the time in football. But now it so rarely happens. I thought it was just us, but other teams also have terrible direct free kicks. Even Ronaldo doesn’t do it anymore. Is it the ball? Is it better defending? What?

Combination of a few things which have been mentioned already, but also because it is an immense skill and takes a degree of dedication that modern footballers are probably lacking.

The sheer repetition required to perfect it takes so much time outside of normal training. Not sure why Ronaldo has been mentioned, he was, on the whole, pretty terrible at free kicks. His method consisted of punting the ball as hard as he could on the valve and hoping the ball moved erratically enough to fool the keeper. He was just allowed to take about 1000 of them and therefore had to score a few spectacular ones that people thought were controlled strikes.

Beckham was a bit better, but he seriously practiced a lot. His lacked power as opposed to someone like Mihajlovic who practiced about 4 hours a day, every day throughout his career outside of normal training. In his youth, he used to do it all day. That's the kind of dedication we're talking about. There was a video knocking around of him smashing them in the top corner consistently aged 50.

Also, even if you manage to be of a consistent standard with power, accuracy and spin... you might not be a great footballer. See JWP.

 

[keaton]

As Swansman has said due to the stats about how few goals are scored like this, we probably see it as a great opportunity to work it back to Sanchez

 

[Stat Brother]

As Swansman has said due to the stats about how few goals are scored like this, we probably see it as a great opportunity to work it back to Sanchez

Keep up.





We're talking free kicks not corners!

 

[keaton]

Keep up.





We're talking free kicks not corners!

I've studied the numbers. If we miss 1.75 more penalties this season, we have start passing them back to him as well