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For over a decade, it’s been one of the most iconic sights in football. The ball spotted, Cristiano Ronaldo closing his eyes and controlling his breathing, and every pair of eyes in the stadium and on sofas around the world settling upon him.
It’s the classic set up for a Ronaldo free-kick. But was he actually good at them?
Seb Stafford-Bloor finds out. Philippe Fenner illustrates.
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#Ronaldo
Late-career Ronaldo on FKs reminds me of late-career Roberto Carlos on FKs. Running on reputation from some insane strikes, relentlessly putting the ball into Row Z.
Exactly my guy
Lol ronaldo is not that good in fk. He attempts too much though .
@@nocapfacts9330 that is why he said "putting the ball into Row Z" = kicking the ball into the stands.
Or smacking the wall then appealing for a handball
Exactly....its kinda sad
I really wondered why he almost always went for power. His freekicks with less power seem to be way more dangerous like the 3-3 Freekick against Spain in the WC comes to mind
Style over Substance, I guess
I felt like de gea could've done a lot better for that particular free kick.
@@vigneshpadinjakkara He couldn't. The curve was too good.
@@vigneshpadinjakkara de gea could've done a lot better in that match. His performance in that match was one of worst goalkeeping performance at World Cups
If He goes for lift, the ball doesn't come down quick enough to hit the target. he has less confidence in those so he decides to channel his portsmouth power which he knows he is famous for and has confidence in it, it hits the wall in short range. he doesn't usually get long range free kicks much, if he does, a decent keeper parries it away.
Most infuriating thing about his Juventus free kick struggles was the fact, that for majority of that time Juve had 2 great direct free kick takers - right-footed Pjanić and left-footed Dybala... Yet it was pretty much always Ronaldo who took them.
And it was either straight into the stands or trying to injure someone in the wall.
Dybala lol.
and the only time dybala got to take a fk was if it was a very difficult angle. Even then I remember dybala scoring a fk vs Atletico from an impossible angle
Not with Ronaldo there, how many has dybala and pjanic scored after Ronaldo was gone.
@@panini15 Maybe he was trying to injure someone in the stands too? 🤔
The dip in la liga average freekick efficiency after Messi left😭
That's my main takeaway from the video as well.
It wasn't great to begin with. Besides measi who else in LA Liga was great at feekicks? Madrid cant decide between Alaba, kroos and benzena. Grizeman has been terrible at them since rejoing atleti, parejo has declined as well. Canales and fekir sometimes score. So yeah, La Liga was awful and still is
@@juniorkhomari1850 That's what were saying
@@juniorkhomari1850 Enis Bardhi
@@juniorkhomari1850 parejo
Pretty good at a time, pretty terrible in recent years, those United Free-kicks were something else.
If he never got injured he would have had 70 freekicks to his name by now The GOAT 😢
@Madrid is love Yeah those ended around 2013 so more than half his career he has been bad.
@@nikosofidemporas *2014
@@patrickdiao Yeah I meant that 2013 was the last year he was good at freekicks.
@@PessiTheFraudexcuses😂. Hes just bad at it. Just admit it already penaldog
"He's a scorer of great free kicks than a consistent scorer" couldn't have put it any better 👍
So he's insufficient
@@77_ACE. cuz he's taking them from great distances
@@diegoclark7697 Maybe he should have let someone else cross the free kick and he should head them in. Would have led to more goals. It's his choice to shoot from stupid ranges.
@@suckieduckie That’s what he was instructed to do lmao did you even watch the video?
@@cjl4978 Do you really think that any manager ever will say: "Alright Cristiano, if the ball is anywhere within 40 yards, eventhough you missed the last 45 times, just go for goal!"
Insane how Ronaldo got worse at free kicks as his career went on and Messi got better at free kicks as his career went on
And pessi couldn't even score 8 goals in league 1 last season 🤡
Because After Xavi left in 2015, Messi became the first choice so started taking all the Free-kicks and consequently scored more
@@makchot3263 no world cup ronny? cry more
@@rubberducky8616 ronaldo didn't pay the refs and stat pad with penalties at the world cup 🤡
@@makchot3263 literal tears bahahaa bro is saying a tournament is rigged cuz thats the only way ronaldo can come close to Messi's level
It’s because he literally does his little routine before shooting and that prepares goalkeepers. Messi on the other hand can either shoot or pass because that’s what his history has shown. If Ronaldo whipped in a ball and someone scored it, after doing his routine, then he could score more. I mean Messi literally was doing just whatever with his free kicks some times. Power shots, curled shots, low driven, chip shots, passes, he’s scored form ridiculous free kick angles as well. He has variety for free kicks and that’s basically the equivalent of being two-footed so goal keepers and defenders don’t know where you’re going or when you’re shooing. However Ronaldo always shoots, it’s a lot easier to save a shot if you know they’re going to shoot instead of putting a ball in the box.
Messi doesnt do power free kicks
@@kukunase1686 he has tho, the point is you don't know what he'll decide to do
@@samo6083 I remmber his frrekick vs atleti in 2017 i think where it hit the crossbar
This is exactly it. I think it's something that lots of people miss about football in general, which is: anything you expect from an opponent is relatively easy to stop, and anything unexpected is comparatively difficult. Players who can disguise their intentions can very easily bypass their opponents. Look at compilations of Messi's goals. He gets incredible mileage from the fact that its very difficult to predict from his body language or shape or position on the pitch the exact moment he'll pull the trigger, and his actual technique is really quick. Without forewarning, his shots just fly past goalkeepers who aren't quite ready for it. But given a quarter-second longer to prepare they'd have a good chance of stopping it. Another more minor recent example: Check out highlights of Arsenal new boy Kiwior. There are plently of times he will dribble/flick the ball past a pressing attacker at point blank range despite not being particularly fast. If you watch closely, it'e because he's got the ability to disguise all the tells and signals that he's about to pull it off. It looks like he's about to be diapossessed as the last defender, and then the tables turn and he's able to freely advance up the pitch with the pressing attacker left standing behind him.
That would be true if keepers saving the ball were the main reason he didn't score. However, even though the video doesn't show it, Ronaldo would miss the goal completely. So even if the keeper had been surprised taking a dump, the ball would never have gone in.
the issue i have with cr7 is that there were always better free kick taker on the team
I think it comes down to the confidence and handling pressure. Ronaldo could have easily not taken the freekick and let bruno/pjanic/dybala handle it but there is no guarantees either. Can they handle the pressure of shooting it on the stands, move on and still perform their best? Kinda like how any player can take a penalty and score them but we prefer people who can handle the pressure.
Yet he took them anyway
@@gurushyam7541 It's less down to handling pressure (those players you mentioned can handle pressure) than it is ego and how influential you are in the dressing room. Ronaldo obviously carried a lot of clout where ever he played and therefore as the 'main man' got to take the freekicks.
@@tilikumtim5562 The hate. come back if dybala scores 850+ goals
@@kukunase1686 its not hate, why you getting so emotional? Your response is irrelevant to what I said. Come back when you have something rational to say.
I remember that 3-3 freekick against spain like it was yesterday. I remember there was this feeling that it was obvious he was gonna score from there. I don't know why but in that moment it felt like he was the best free kick taker in the world.
This. That moment was so poetic it felt like reality itself would break if he didn't score at that moment. Of course, one can argue there are moments even more poetic and tense, and I'm not even a fan, but that's just what I felt at that moment and I remember it vividly.
It was a clutch situation and as far as I have seen football, he's the most clutch player so it explains.
I was solely on Messi camp for many years but I had put a bet for a draw for a tenner which back then seemed like a substantial amount of money. I became CR7 fan that instant and few years later stopped gambling
That's truly an Instagram fangirls argument. The man hasn't scored half a decent freekick in the past 5+years. The one against Spain stands out cause it was luckily a clutch goal and it was the only goal of a kind he's managed to slot in years. He's probably not the best fk taker in Portugal either.
@@ziplock8316 OP didn't pose an argument. Not everything everyone says is an argument.
His Tendinosis is never covered in the media, that injury and the succeeding knee issues hampered his 2014 WC and completely changed his game from a winger to a monster finisher. Without it, we would have continued seeing the 2012-14 Ronaldo dribbles and flair well into his later years.
I also wonder why he never mentioned it himself. Maybe he doesnt want to use excuses,I dont know...
are you serious? Are you arguing that tendinosis didn't allow him to dribble past defenders or shoot free kicks properly any longer, but that he could still be one of the fastest runners in all football and by far the best jumper ever? It's a blatant excuse. This knee injury would have allegedly made him worse at what he got worse, but somehow wouldn't affect all the physical aspects of the game which he maintained or improved.
Messi also suffered a serious injury in 2013 which sidelined him for a good part of the year but Messi didn't change his playstyle drastically after that. He became an even more complete player.
More like a monster tap in merchant. Where the entire team had to massage his ego and roll balls onto his feet for him to tap.
@@pitamberarora6232 Tendinosis is Chronic, which means it will stay for a long time and destroy his left knee over time, Messi was injured, but he healed and now he's fine, Ronaldo's left knee will probably never fully heal ever again so he's basically been handicapped since 2014.
His free kick against Marseille in the 09/10 UCL isn't appreciated enough
Part of being a good free kick taker is knowing when to play the ball into a dangerous area instead of shooting. Trying to explain away the lower efficiency rate because he happens to take more shots farther away doesn't strike me as a good argument, knowing when not to take that shot is absolutely a consideration when talking about somebody being good at free kicks. You frame it as "it's low BUT because of this" instead of framing it as "it's low because he's making bad decisions."
That has nothing to do with being a good free kick taker. Thats just decision making and selfishness. Its not like he's stupid, he just wants to score a great free kick because he loves them.
At Real Madrid we always groaned when we saw CR7 about to take a free kick, we knew we were giving up a good chance. And the rare ocasion when he scored was worse because it gave him credit to kick the next hundred
🤣😂😂🤣 True. and the technique of those free kicks was terrible
But you have to admit his goals came at amazing moments. The Wolfsburg comeback, the Sporting Lisbon goal in the dying minutes, the one where he beat Neuer under the wall. 2009-2014 Ronaldo was anyways the best free-kick taker in the team so can't blame him for taking those. In Juventus he should have given them to Dybala for sure, and to Bruno in ManU
how many fk's were scored after he left?
Absolutely, I remember a span of games when he was injured so James and/or Bale took them and sure enough scored but as soon as Ronaldo was healthy the ball would go back to getting launched into the second tier. If ward prowse was on his team, Ronaldo would still insist on taking them😂
@@thisIsFunnyLolz ward prowse has 16 career freekick goals while cr7 has 58. I don't think ward prowse will ever reach his record.
His greatest free kick achievement was still hitting the one-man wall of Philipp Lahm from like 40 meters.
Pessi fan dog
@@tylergriffin2499it’s true penaldog😂. Tapin fraud is dogshit at freekicks
There was a period where you knew he wasn't just going to miss, but sail it way over the goal.
We still in that period
He went beyond plus ultra
It was more like slamming into the wall. In 2014 world cup he hit Muller, the only player in the wall.
@@iganpparamarta8813 Yep, not going to lie - for me that is my most memorable Ronaldo fk moment. Laughing with friends before that about surely it doesn't make it past him and then sure enough...
We're in 2 periods now Into the wall Or over the bar
His rise in fame with free kicks was from knuckleballs. They were rare and less understood. But naturally they became less effective when teams expected him to do it, learned how to to deal with them, and he lost the sheer athleticism to do them emphatically. Without the novelty and brute force, they became less effective than a conventional well placed, well stuck curler. 🤷♂️
He stopped doing so many knuckle balls after his injury.
The reason Ronaldo closes his eyes before a free kick is he's deciding to either give a free ball away to someone in row z or try to injure some in the wall who was tackling him a bit too hard.
LOL
🤣🤣🤣🤣
😭😭😭😭
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂
Cr7 fan but that's hilarious lmao
"Why are your free kicks so consistent?" "Consistent?"
He said, because I'm consistent
Yep consistent in the stands
Bro hit a 1-man-wall. Enough said
The impenetrable wall that is the giant of a man Philipp Lahm😤
@@Simon-fp8xv nope it was Lahm
@@Simon-fp8xv it was lahm
Give credit to Phillip Lahm. A legend of the game.
IM NOT HAVING IT
disrespecting ronaldo is a bandwagon that many creators been riding on and I am honestly tired of seeing people questionning this man's abilities to play the beautiful game. Let the man have a quiet retirement he deserves it I know this is a an amazing video and it's well made but nevertheless the guy was a genius on the pitch and watching him play felt like a lucid dream for years, it was so beautiful you could cry watching every single detail of it. Same goes for messi by the way but people disrespected greatly one of the greats and it hurts to see all the world doing this to a man that many thought he was a cyborg at some point the real original cyborg. Perhaps he was too good that people actually hated facing him and when a lion ages and show signs of weakness cowards strike perhaps that's why many people know loudly being negative towards the man instead of appreciating history being made right in front of them. I wish we get to see a player like him once again and relive something this absurdly breath taking.
It's the black sheep effect. Apparently it's easier to fit in with the crowd and throw dirt on a great player than go against it and call them out. Makes me sick.
@@manwhoasked5942 That's exactly what Ronaldo's crybaby idiot fans do to Messi. But now, he's the official GOAT.
@@manwhoasked5942 it's pure insanity
glad there are people like you who dont follow the sheep. new fans join this sport at an exponential rate, and a lot of the social media users today have been watching since lockdown or sum, they only hate cr7 nothing else
I think there might be an error in your data as he scored a free kick for Manchester United vs Norwich in 21/22 so he can’t be on 0% conversion for that season
I thought he would be around 7-8% as for the average conversion rate, not really that good though.
Most legendary ronaldo free kick is against germany, where he hit Lahm who was the only one in the wall. Probably harder than hitting the goal.
Wasnt it Muller?
This is a very well balanced analysis of Ronaldo's free kick record. Videos like these are why I subscribed. It would be nice to see a free kick series looking at some of the best.
At his best years he was excellent. He could score with 2 techniques, the knuckle shot vs Atletico's Courtois in 2011/2012, or the standard curler vs Atletico's Oblak (can't remember which season). And then the declining years where he'd always shoot it to the wall. He had a couple goals using curler (vs Torino and Sweden) but somehow he abandoned it and always back to hitting the wall technique. From a guy who was great at adapting to new roles and loved setting records, it's ironic that he didn't adapt his freekick technique to a better one. Maybe he wanted to set most freekick attempts?
it was his ego, because curlers were messi thing
@@teegoyt. Dude not everything is about Messi. Maybe he was not as confident in curlers? Did you consider that?
Because for something like deadball setpieces one tends to strike with whatever technique one's more mechanically confident with. He wasn't that comfortable hitting curl balls because he probably observed he wasn't very effective with it during training, so he favored his knuckleball instead. It's as simple as that, but since for something like FK taking your overall efficiency rate is objectively measurable and it can be compared to other player's, the ultimate conclusion that tifo shyed away from is that no, CR isn't a good FK taker. He was above average in some odd seasons and terrible at it in most, which by no means averages to good through his career.
I remember two of his free kicks one against Wolfsburg is Champion's league and one against Spain in WC 18 both were scored in super high pressure games and both seemed almost impossible the Wolfsburg one especially
The fact that he was allowed to take free kicks ahead of Pjanic and Dybala is criminal. Two of the best in the world and they were stuck behind this siuuuuu merchant
Bro scored once in like a solid 70 free kicks Dybala scored more in literally less games after his signing
Don't disrespect the goat ChriSHtian RUUUnald (Portuguese pronunciation).
CR7 joined Juve 5 fkn' years after Dybala did and he STILL managed to score 100 goals for Juve faster than Dybala. There are levels and then there are LEVELS to this game. Stop being such a jealous petty wimp.
@@dimitarkaloyanov9188 Brother we were talking about Free kicks And Ronaldo simply can't compare to Dybala
@@dimitarkaloyanov9188 not sure where in my comment I said Dybala was a better player than Ronaldo? Obviously he isn't, Ronaldo is one of the best of all time. HOWEVER, at that time Dybala was a much better free kick taker than Ronaldo which is why Ronaldo taking them ahead of Dybala was ridiculous
out of curiousity. is it possible to do about all the top scoring freekick takers? would be interesting to see how all the great legends stacks up against each other.
When Ronaldo takes a free kick, the GK goes for a sip of tea while he watches Ronaldo send the ball into space.
not into space, into FACE...of one of the poor players in the wall.
Yet he has banged 58 direct freekicks in his whole career, Messi has 60.
@@mmm0404 Yeah, Ronaldo was good at free kicks 10 year agos, but in the last 10 years he has been absolute garbage at free kicks.
@@tomatoisnotafruit5670 why? do you expect him to be good till he is 38? Even if he was never consistent with his FK in the last 10 years, the ones he still managed to score where one of a kind. He has still managed to score vital freekicks that helped the team win major titles in the last 10 years
@@mmm0404 No i don't expect him to be good, but I expect more than either sending it to space or hitting the wall every single time, especially when there are other better free kick specialists on his team yet he refuses to let anyone take a shot.
Someone has to say it and I will- Ronaldo on the floor demanding a foul to be called is such an iconic image.
In Manchester back in days he was too good at free kicks. He was expected to score almost every game. His technique was top notch and on of my favourite of all time
Nah. His free kick accuracy at United was acceptable. It then became abysmal.
@@Chris-zd7gwno he was great in united. Good in early Real Madrid days. After that he dipped
Ronaldo getting cooked in the comments 😂😂😂
Proves that he has more haters
@@zesrabtanjeelkhan377 That's not a flex Lmao
@@Anonymous-yy2dm also not a flex to hate on someone you don't even know 🤷♂️
What his haters can do the most. Hate on social media 😂
imagine how much ronaldo would be laughing looking at their lives
I honestly think the main reason his free-kicking quality diminished drastically was simply because he stopped practicing as much. When he went to MU he was known for practicing his free-kicks for hours after training. This was at a time he was a midfielder and still needed to prove himself. When he went to Real, he was already a Ballon D'Or winner that had won everything at MU, plus, he switched positions to a more offensive role. I would argue at Real he practised free-kicks less because he had to focus on other Attacker qualities, and unlike Messi, Ronaldo is not pure talent, he is a product of hard-work, as he stopped practising free-kicks he got worse at it.
Is this just your own cope for his decline or is it actually based on numbers? Cristiano doesn't strike me as the type to stop practicing.
Messi pure talent? He used to be rubbish at free kicks, to the point where Maradonna had to explain to him how to kick them
Funfact: From 2003 to 2013 Ronaldo scored 40 freekicks. If he had kept that pace he would have had around 80 freekick goals today which is insane.
He could've if he opted curler instead of knuckle shot. He still had it in him but he kinda always want to hit it from the lace/knuckle.
@@iganpparamarta8813 Yeah😂. It's funny how he keeps shooting into the walls but when he uses the curler he immediatly scores a goal lmao
How is that insane? -his efficiency is like 500% under that of his rivals
@@vladorac6 his first goal for united came from a free kick too.
@@mx5am945 Because almost nobody has ever reached 80+ freekickdäs. Juninho had 79 I think
Used to be one of the best during his time at United and first few seasons in Madrid.
That was a actually a really good analysis, I do think his tendinosis had a part to play, but also most probably his Efficiency went down as well, sad as his free kicks really were special
Wait... What chronic illness
@@siphomnisi3842 sorry not illness, his chronic condition
@@indiereaper2442 do you mean knee condition
@@siphomnisi3842 yup
@@HarshvardhanKanthode then why not just say that
Back in the day when watching Barcelona during their mighty era .... Whenever real madrid got a free kick I cheered "YES!" , I knew the first freekick always goes above to goal or straight up wide. Second freekick will hit the wall... and 3rd is the one you have to look out for, because thats when Cr7 had synchronized his shot.
Interesting to consider how many freekicks he will have taken in a match before he scores
@@zainyardo1136 When you seen as many "El Classicos" as I have... you start to notice patterns. Cr7, amazing player but far from being good at freekicks.
Love how unbiased this was. Great video.
He had his moments
I’ll never forget his free kick against Germany in 2014
funny how he hit the only person just standing there
also won't forget Messi's freekick against Germany. was heartbreaking.
@@misfittoy4078 That freekick was like 200km from goal though.
@@misfittoy4078 Are you seriously trying to argue that now, after the 2022 World Cup? Nice try buddy
@@epicgamersvv1582 Yeah but still hurt man. Thank god he finally lifted the cup. It won't hurt anymore.
Any footy player knows that the knuckle shot is a hit and hope but my god does it look good when it comes off
It’s all about the spectacle for Ronaldo
“Comparisons and statistics only tell part of the story” NO. They tell the story. It’s just how lazy the data analysts/ writers want to be about it. I assume everyone here knows football. So obviously 2nd chance attempts are understood to be important. And it’s also critical to analyze players who shoot from dead balls do so with a high degree on target otherwise follow up is irrelevant. Ball flight is the key variable here. The keepers inability to maintain possession is key. It’s much like a long shot in hockey. They are fine if they are let glove side saves mitted and instead bobbled. For instance, of the past 100 free kick chances between 2019 and 2022, Ronaldo netted only 3. But 20 were directly on target and another 3 were scored on immediate follow ups. 16 needed to be saved. A heavy majority went straight to corners. And even more were low ricochets that stayed in the attacking 3rd. His free kicks were about maintaining Possession. Why does a channel with a million subs not investigate that? That’s interesting on its own. How about Ronaldo was solely responsible for delivering balls 35-25 yards especially whereas many other specialists had someone else serve these ? How about many other specialists have a significantly worse Rate at which possession is maintained? For instance Messi netted 8 in his last 100, but of those 92 remaining he was much worse at helping his club maintain the ball. Bc the delivering concept was entirely different and the purpose not the same, the small margins missed meant they were goal kicks mostly. But from indirect follows that we’re immediate plus direct goals, he’s not far behind the best in the world statistically. And not even factoring in his threat was upwards of 10 yards deeper than most others could provide. Inside 35 yards wirb Ronaldo you had to be wary of a goal. That’s much different defensively entirely than someone not matching this.
2nd half of the video is very good, you explained a lot of the context. 👍
I feel like everyone in the comments is ignoring the most important part of the video about him going for a goal no matter the FK distance
They didn't keep really detailed stats during his playing days, so it is difficult to do an empirical comparison, but most who watched him at the time tend to fall upon Juninho Pernambucano as the best (i.e. most consistent) free kick taker of all.
Since people always talk about how it was unfair to Dybala and Pjanic.I'll give a shout out to Gareth Bale who also suffered for this.Even though he was always beloved,Bale never seemed to get his recognition as a great free kick taker.I mean there was a time in Tottenham where he only knew how to score long shots and free kicks.
Funny thing is that Keylor Navas told him on several occasions if he took power off his free kicks and went for placement, he'd score way more goals.
Yes he was in 2006 - 2009 😂 as a united fan i was spoiled with Beckhams Free Kick but Ronaldo took it to another level. I still remember his FK goals against Portsmouth in 2008 & Arsenal in 2009, those were glorious. IDK what happened afterwards, probably his ego and people dared not to tell him to change his FK style.
You don't even watch football, he scored more free kicks for Madrid than he did in Man U, his decline started like a year or two before leaving Madrid which is normaL. Don't talk about people's Ego that you don't know
To compare Ronaldos freekick ability to Beckham's is ridiculous. Ronaldo scored flashier freekicks but Beckham was a different level. I would rather have Beckham with 1 freekick attempt than have Ronaldo with 2 attempts.
@@smoothcheeky8910 thats because the longetivity of their respective career. Becks was in and out of european football by the time he was 31 years old, while Ronaldo was only entered his 2nd peak as footballer at same age. But the varieties of Ronaldo FK goals beat Beckham's.
@@harukrentz435 the variety? Ronaldo only has 1 technique as well lol. Also Beckham being out of football so young just furthers my point. Beckham has more freekick goals than Ronaldo. Beckham is by far a superior set piece taker
@@smoothcheeky8910 Nah, Ronaldo has a lot of free-kick techniques, it has been well-known since his prior Manchester United days, it's just he tends or is prone to do knuckles more than curlers.
can you do a video on why juninho pernabecano was so good at free kicks ?
You could have easily accounted for goalkeeping performance by counting the saves from his free kicks. At least judging from his Portugal free kick-taking, I got the impression he couldn't even get it on goal, let alone actually score. Whenever he got a free kick for Portugal, my friends and I would place bets on whether it would hit the wall or the stands. He was once very good at free kicks, but he should have admitted that he just doesn't have it anymore and let colleagues take them instead. The result has been bad conversion rates for Portugal and Juventus/Man United and further damage to Ronaldo's image as a world-class player.
In the end he is a world-class player.
ronaldo free kick vs portsmouth is the greatest free kick ive ever seen.
@@0darumair0 😂😂
@@0darumair0 😂😂😂😂
Imagine if he had instead chosen to be the receiver with indirect freekick, he would have added a lot more goals.
Thank you for making this. I'm sick of the myth that Ronaldo is one of the best freekick takers ever
He is. Easily his freekicks are so iconic specially in his united days
well he's scored 56 thats pretty up there, jwp only has 16
@@ubaidmalik2517 iconic free kicks does not equate to being the best free kick taker, as painstakingly explained in the video. He’s a scorer of iconic freekicks, but not a consistent scorer of one.
@@daniaaal one of the best surely.
He is lmao in his PRIME. However he didn’t keep that up due to injury and age.
Thanks for this video, infos are deep
In Utd spell, nobody doubted his free kick taking. But since over about 2013, he's just pathetic at it.
right around his knee injury
@@acreditar-belive2950 could it also be his technique? Should he just change how he approaches free kicks or how he shoots them?
@@acreditar-belive2950 also the Knuckleball technique does not work well new balls
@@pdxphantom4575 I have tried to play with an injured knee and the difference in my performance was drastic, trying to warm up taking free kicks was ridiculous I couldn’t get curl on the ball and could rarely get good accuracy on my shots. I don’t think I had any tendonitis but just bruising and stiffness around my knee, so what ronaldo has is no doubt worse.
Nah, 2014 was still considered as his best season. He went backward after the 2014 WC.
Oddly enough La Liga free kick drop off was the year MESSI left to PSG 🥲🥲🥲
because no body in that league was good at free kick, most r average at best lol. I remember watching one game they give messi the same treatment as maradona and put a player next to the other goal post while the keeper cover his near post. u know u r dealing with a great free kick taker when they have to do this lol.
@@laujack24 not only that they also started putting players laying down underneath the wall
The goal keepers in general have gotten much better over CR7s career. You hardly see any long distance goal anymore. In general a modern top tier goalie is expected to hold every shot outside the box.
While tru that keeps have gotten better then you have to explain the Payet, Ward prowse, messi (for a time), maddison, etc free kicks performing quite well
@@hypie88 Are you talking about my comment lol? I am just speaking from the stats and my experience watching that yeah goalies have gotten better, but some free kick takers are still excellent with amazing conversion rates some seasons (ward prowse 20/21 was 20%) and others not so much including Ronaldo after a certain point. So it is less the keepers getting better and more like Ronaldo has just gotten plainly worse at them
I always felt Messi and Ronaldo were on teams with other players on the pitch who would be better options. Due to "imagery" (sponsors) and public pressure, people always wanted those two to take them. In truth that neither are top 10 free kick takers of all time
Bruh y not messi?
Yeah they're not part of elite freekick taker but still a good one.
I Feel like this is the best take. Neymar and Suarez were both better free kick takers, Suarez just based on memory scored most of his few attempts. Messi took quite a number of free kicks and definitely scored some pearlers, but I feel that most times that the other two should have probably taken the kick. Obviously this is more true of Ronaldo, but the video already explained that end
@@thecalmbeforethemaelstrom Neymar and Suarez havn't really shown any better free kick conversion than Messi, but I agree that free kicks from the left, which favour a right legged player, they should take them over Messi.
He was good early on, pre 2014 but people don't understand that injury he got in his left knee, he had to change and adapt because he couldn't dribble as much anymore too, he had to transition to a striker because of it.
So you seriously telling shooting a knuckle ball in knee injury is easier than curling the ball??
To be fair to him being the second best player called Ronaldo is an impressive feat
@Crouchy232323 that's Ronaldo we're talking about, he doesn't like being 2nd best, monster mentality💪
A lot of data is missing for a useful comparison. The first is the average free kick conversion in the 5 leagues prior to his drop off, can't rate a player as "good" at free kicks or not, without an average for comparison throughout his career. Also, how many of his free kicks resulted in goals from rebounds or goalkeeper parries? Doesn't matter if he didn't score directly from a free kick if his free kicks directly led to a goal. Another dataset could be the proportion of free-kicks that clear the wall and on target, but this would be more time consuming to acquire.
I think he bought into his free-kick technique like he did his signature celebration. It was part of the "brand", that this is the way Ronaldo takes free kicks so this is the way it will be thus.
Instead the conversation percentage shouldn't the combined xG of the shot come into effect to tell if he is a good free kick taker?
Real Madrid had Bale and Kroos on thier team but this guy was stinking it up 24/7.
Bale already took FKs from the right. How many FKs does Kroos score now? Dumb clown
"This guy" lmao
Cr7 holds the record for most freekick goals for Madrid at 32.
bale was mostly injured and has kroos scored any since he left?
oh yeah because they was banging in free kicks constantly since he left lol
I always assumed his attitude was not to score but to damage the shins of the opposition in the wall as to make it potentially easier to score later on in the game?
Ronaldo was the best "one season wonders" free kick takers
The thing is afterall ppl will always remember Ronaldo's knuckle ball because of its uniqueness, just like how ppl remember Juninho's style or Beckham's, Carlos's. No one 's gonna remember Messi's freekick style because when it comes to swerve, Messi is no where to be matched with the likes of Beckham, Pirlo or even Ward Prowse
Are you gonna cry😢?
@@shanelamar8857 It's a fact. Effective or not, it's Ronaldo's trademark. He could had easily changed his FK's style but he chose not to even when he know he can no longer do the knuckle. That's just his ego, his character
@@shanelamar8857 ironically, you seem like the one who's pressed, the other guy presented a fact, you're being top emotional about it.
messi dont need people to remember him for freekick. he is a best dribbler in history, best finisher in terms of efficiency and one of the top 10 play maker/passer in history. combine all that u get to be called the goat, u dont need to be remember for something as freekick specialist altho he also good at it after he turn 28.
@@laujack24 Messi ain't that good of a freekick taker either anyway.
I remember at a period of time when he was in Real Madrid where opponents feared any free kick he was taking.
Yep cuz that ball was coming on to their face
If the best recent FK taker’s conversion percentage is 10% . It’s fair to say that FK aren’t efficient ways to directly score in general. Yeah it’s cool when it happens and especially so from further away, but idk if it should contribute much to our evaluations since it’s such a low percentage.
He just scored free kick recently,35+ yards against Abha 👍🔥
It would've been great to see the free-kick rebound goals aswell since these were taken for that purpose. He did many of these free-kicks throughout his carreer, and, it's also why he took longer ranging free-kicks. These type of free-kicks make sense, specially from the more frontal areas where it's harder to cross, because they create 2 possible attempts at goal with relative ease, risk, and, to a lesser extent, corners. These were just a few thoughts out of the top of my head from whatching the video, not to mention, he essentially developed a new form of nuckle ball. It's strange none of this was mentioned, maybe it's more irrelevant than i thought.
No it wasn't Ronaldos Free kicks have no intention of a rebound He takes them to score, because if he was looking for a teammate to score it would be more efficient to just play it in
@@vedanthnair5443 mate, his primary intention is to score, but it also creates the opportunity for a rebound. can't believe this needed to be explained
@@vedanthnair5443you would know
Cristiano free Kick goals are enjoyable to watch
Yeah, if you’re over at row z, you’re always guaranteed a free ball
@@pysky4u I am not talking about Messi's penalty
@@MeritoriousBoy And then you people do a 180 and say that he won the WC cos of pens, lol.
@@Leonessi10 no He won because of refereeing
@@MeritoriousBoy Penaldo payed the refs and still lost to Morocco 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I remember playing club soccer… our center forward took all our free kicks. He blasted every single one has hard as he could and maybe scored one goal of free kicks all year. He was out one game so I took our one free kick and scored…. Our coach never let me take another one again lol. Sometimes we cave to our “star players” even if it hurts out results.
Would love to see the same for the aforementioned Beckham, JWP
He is only there for the spectacle, thats his whole selling point.
Last one he netted was in 1456 in Florence.
Lol
Just reading the comments it's very simple to explain why Ronaldo got worse at free kicks: the knee injury he got in the early 2010's! After that injury his technique of power was never the same and he kind of lost his magic 🪄. Still he has some amazing free kicks like the one against Arsenal and the one against Spain.
Kind of curious, how many of those expected rebounds/erros ended in goals?
I’ve never seen a player who prides themselves on perfection seemingly make 0 effort to improve his technique after all these years of failed kicks that don’t even beat the walls
interesting point. no sane person would criticize Ronaldo's work ethic so thats pretty crazy when you think about it. I guess its just due to his overconfidence which made him so great but has also proved to be his achilles heel over the last few years
Another thing with Ronaldo is that he almost always never scores free kicks against the biggest teams.
Well he scored one in the CL Semis against Bayern, one against Spain in a World Cup in his later years. A 40 yard screamer against Arsenal in the CL. And Ofcourse a lot of times against Atletico Madrid. All of them minnows as you can see.
So who did you think scored the most freekick against biggest team ?
tifo man pls dont stop making videos
His technique is such that if not practiced daily it won't work.
He was good at freekicks I think as the years went by he either didn’t practice them enough or he didn’t find out what worked for him and perfect it
I feel this is exactly it. As his career progressed he became a bigger star with more business interests outside of football. At United, he was spending extra time practicing free kicks after training - even with van der Sar in goal, staying behind with him. I believe he clearly stopped doing that at some point at Madrid as he no longer had the time for it.
@@KandaEzana knee injury around 2013 changed him...
@@EdgarHunk was is not in 2014
@@MrPie-yb2py yes true...i got it wrong..but the fact remains the same... knee injury at real Madrid changed him.. affected his performance at World Cup too and then he went on the became one of the best finishers of the game since then!
@@EdgarHunk It didnt though. Ronaldo was still clocking his fastest running speeds or his highest jumps after his injury. You cant use the injury as an excuse as to why he got worse at what he wasnt incredible at but not see a decline in anything else.
Great insights!
If you watched Beckham, Juninho and Ronaldinho by comparison you’d know that CR7 was more on the spectacular side than being the most reliable at free kicks. By virtue of mastering their specific technique I’d imagine Becks et al could still bend them w/ decent regularity well into retirement lol. Mark Hughes once questioned how CR7’s knee would hold up due to his technique. Clearly he was hitting and hoping towards the end lol.
Next: Is Romeo Beckham A Good Footballer?!?! 🤔🤨🧐
Better than Ronaldo
Nope the guy is like 19 years old and plays for Brentford B team
Be careful his fans is very scary 🤣🤣🤣
Nobody cares about his brainless fans
Okay monkey
Im just waiting for Ronaldo fan boys to strike at your comment 😂
Don't worry he still giving pessi fangirls like you sleepless nights 😂😂😂
Would have been interesting to have directly compared numbers of Juninho, Beckham, Ward-Prowse or goalkeeper Rogério Ceni etc...
Great work and very interesting videos!!
@@nottingham4420 wrong place buddy 😅
It's not up for discussion that before the injury Ronaldo was one of the very greatest long range free kick takers of all time. The same applies for overall free kicks. Ever since the injury. He's become dreadful at them and should've stopped taking then but it doesn't even come close to destroying his legacy, which is why a Ronaldo free kick will always be a special moment.
Honestly how many long range free kicks did he actually score? To me it seems like he tried so often that some were bound to go in at some point. Juninho also scored 40 yard free kicks, three of them over 40 yards in fact, and he had much better precision.
CR7's earlier success with free kicks is largely due to his pure athleticism in making his shots with power and speed, not placements. Think of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Roberto Carlos. Once teams found out that CR7 doesn't place at the corner most of the time, he's been found out and hence his free kick conversion dwindles significantly
Yeah you can argue that Ronaldo's free kicks were probably not as accurate as we thought they were, where it was in fact the pure power and speed of the ball that actually made them go in and of course as you age those athletic abilities would inevitably decline as it did with Ronaldo in recent years.
This has been something I have been noticing for a while with Ronaldo.
Have always thought his free kicks were overrated because, on the odd occasion they came off, they were spectacular. Watching him line it up in the later years was eye-roll inducing, particularly as there were usually free kick takers in the squad who were better than he ever was.
You got a player who had some serious injuries nobody ever talks about. Messi for the most part his injuries were not as big of a factor as Ronaldo’s knee injury. I wanna say ronaldo is so fit he was able to bounce back but into a different role but only the true CR7 fans will know how his speed was before the knee problem. It was unreal
I'd say he was generally good, though in fact brilliant at them during his United days the Portsmouth and Arsenal ones come to mind, then even in Real Madrid in his first season 09/10, the ones against Marseille and Villareal, plus that clever low one against Bayern in 13/14 but after the injury in 2014 his free kick conversion declined significantly with the occasional great free kicks such as the Wolfsburg and the Spain one. You could tell that he couldn't go for pure power anymore compared to before which is what got him all those free kick goals- the signature knuckleball. I mean if Ronaldo wanted to be more effective he could have realised this weakness and changed his style, had someone else take them to give him a scoring opportunity or even turned his free kicks into long balls/crosses to get an assist in.
These stats don't say much if not adjusted for range/xg
He was the first popularise knuckle ball . Up until then we never saw that
*"WAS* Cristiano Ronaldo good at free kicks?" I love that we're now talking about him in the past tense. Has-been.
And you are?
@@opinionatortv6457 not a dumb fanboy. What about you?
He's about to turn 38 lol, R9 hung up his boots at like 34. Cristiano has won it all, nothing more to prove
@@HarshvardhanKanthode his most prestigious award the Dubai d'or
@@metalpipe41 He's won the Balon d'Or FIVE times, second most on history. You can call Messi the Goat but don't disregard CR7
His Ego always lets him down...He was superb at freekicks at Man united 2003-08 when Messi scored only 3.But year after year he got worse with losing power to knuckleball.Surprisingly he still curl the ball like 3-3 Spain, and Juventus -Girona 2-1.But still keeps doing the same rubbish
I think the managers in charge towards the end at Madrid, Juve onto United have a case to answer, for bottling it and not taking him off free kicks when everyone watching new free kicks were going into the wall or over the bar.
The one goal every 50 games was worth it 😂