Boffins explain greatest ever free kick
Scientists have agreeably concluded that Roberto Carlos's 1997 free kick against France - a seemingly impossible blast into the back of the net from 115ft - was not the fluke some have claimed. While hapless French keeper Fabien Barthez might have taken solace from the thought that perhaps a gust of wind had accounted for the …
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Somehow I think
I'd rather remain an ignorant than be a smug golfer.
hmmmm
im waiting for all the overweight none sporties to say about who cares etc...
btw - anyone who can play football above junior school level can bend the ball like crazy... its not hard, although the distance on that one was a bit special. its genreally what shows up most none-playing footy commentators as they are amazed that you can do this... its just simple outside of the boot stuff really.
also, carlos does have massive leg muscles, im sure he could knock a wall down with one of his shots! :)
Um ...
Anyone who plays football can bend the ball like Roberto Carlos did that day? I really really don't think so .... i will give you £100 if you post a video of you scoring from that range with a wall in front of you with a similar kind of bend to the ball.
None?
None sporties?
None-playing?
If you're going to pre-judge and dismiss huge swathes of your readers at least get your spelling right! :oP
duh
>>overweight none sporties
So you are saying that people either play football or are overweight none sporties?
You do realise there are other sports? Have a look at the Olymics for instance, lots of sports there and very few of them are football.
>>anyone ... can bend the ball like crazy
Did you read the article, or did it just go straight over your head on an exponential spiral???
no....
read what i wrote. its easy to bend it. what was special about that was the power and final curl the ball got and the distance, naturally.
i only said what i said as every article ive seen so far on the reg that mentions football someone (if not many people) always go on about who cares about football etc. i was just being pre-emptive...
and who cares that i invented a word. this isnt a bloody dissertation is it? i also dont bother to add apostrophes as im generally in a rush and i imagine people on here are intelligent enough to understand what i write.
@Citizen Kaned (2nd post)
"read what i wrote. its easy to bend it. what was special about that was the power and final curl the ball got and the distance, naturally."
You sir are a moron. The entire point of the article was that it was only the final curl that was special, the rest was entirely standard.
"and who cares that i invented a word."
You didn't invent a word. You are just wrong. I also wasn't aware that it takes so long to press the Shift key that you cannot possibly squeeze it into your busy life. How about you stop speaking youre branes on here, since you are in such a rush?
read what i wrote
>>what was special about that was the power and final curl
Yes indeed, that was the whole point of the aticle - "exponential spirals". What is not clear is why you need to comment on the issue of low power balls which do not have a funny curve.
Um...the Olympics
are more to do with money and commercial exploitation than sport.
Still, there's no shortage of people who appear to have more money than sense these days, so no doubt they'll be splashing out like there's no tomorrow. Which there isn't BTW - its been cancelled.
Still a fluke though
I mean, how many boffin play football?
They know nothing!!
Poppycock
The best free kick was by Luc Nilis, playing for Anderlecht against Mechelen, as can be seen 11 seconds into this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8084934473300432540#
That's got more curve than Roberto's :p
The real reason it went in is
because God hates Fabian Barthez.
So ...
If the point of all this study is that the technique and result can be executed and reproduced by anyone, how come Roberto Carlos spent the remainder of his career threatening glasses, noses and flasks in the third row of the second tier? He never even came close to doing this a second time.
Definitely a fluke
Has he managed to reproduce that free kick in the 13 years since? Then it was a fluke. Pure and simple.
Yebbut..
Yeah, but now he's had the physics explained to him, he should have no trouble reproducing it.
When I were a lad............
I scored a goal from just behind the centre line. No spin as such, just a badly over-lofted kick that fooled the goalie. Wish there had been video cameras back in 1974..
Fluke?
Not so much. Easily reproduced? Not so much. I can and have made shots like that, but I'm not consistent. As a poster above states, simple outside of the boot stuff. It really, really is. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to catch the ball exactly right, and you learn this very easily by just watching the pros. Some shots go spectacularly right and fly into the net, but others go into the stands, and would do Johnny Wilkinson proud...
Most straight shots with power are struck with the very top of the foot - watch almost any collection of superb strikes and you'll see this. Then watch replays of misses that go waaaaaay off into the crowd, and you'll see (especially in slo-mo) that they tried to emulate this and struck just a little (or even a lot) off centre of the top of the boot.
As I said, I can and haver done this, but being an old get now I no longer play (1 too many trees when riding off-road) so I'm afraid you're not getting a video...
Oh yes
Me too. I've done it loads. I'm always doing it.
Jesus
"As a poster above states, simple outside of the boot stuff. It really, really is. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to catch the ball exactly right"
You can't even get your story straight. It's either simple or very difficult. It can't really be both.
Um ...
Except simple does very often "equate to easy" ...
eg; http://thesaurus.com/browse/simple?jss=0
"easy as pie" etc ....
Scientific fluke
Guess it has good scientific principle, but the margins for error are so tiny that even a pro could try 100 times and only succeed once.
Explaining the spiral
The boffins are explaining the spiral (the sudden dart into the goal at the end of the shot) not just the normal curve seem on many a shot, regardless of it going in the goal.
title
"the sudden dart into the goal at the end of the shot"
That might have something to do with the ball hitting the inside of the post.
Children .. children ...
For those too young to remember....
In the Real World Cup of 1966 two different Brazilians did the exact same thing (which was gob-smackingly noticeable even on 66 vintage screens). One was Garrincha (who looked a bit like the attached icon) the other I forget - may be Pele (although in 66 he spent more time on the ground because of a good kicking than playing footie).
Cheers
What? No Apple/Jobs angle?
Surely you could have fitted one in?..
Jobs declares Apple to be best free kick taker.
Jobs bends better than Carlos.
...
<untitled>
Depends on your definition of fluke. If I tried a shot like that and actually pulled it off, it'd be a fluke.
1977
Nihil novi sub sole. Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMP1waoYFQs . No. 10 (@ 4:52). It was in 1977 and it wasn't his (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_Deyna) only time. He was famous for those.
Boffins and football
@Gordon Pryra
Are you sure? When I was an undergraduate we used to have an annual students v lecturers footie match at Uni. One of the microbiology lecturers played at club level and specialised in injurious hacking, while Prof Tuite, the burly biochemistry lecturer could mow down 3 student defenders at a time with a can of stella in his hand, and still score.
brilliant.
so the blighter didn't just kick the ball and hope, as he generally used to - while pertified punters dived left and right to avoid his less accurate efforts at goal (some which Wilko would have been rightly proud!)
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