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Come right this way for your Beckhams, your Cristiano Ronaldos back when he could take the odd free-kick, and most importantly your Juninho Pernambucanos.
Hulk v Sao Paulo
The thick-set Atletico Mineiro forward lines up a 40-yard kick. Surely it’s too far out. But no, someone has made Hulk angry and he absolutely batters the ball and it wobbles and floats into the top corner. And it moves at pace, so he must have hit it hard. He’s still only 37 and still playing and has played 199 games for Mineiro, scoring 106 goals.
Keisuke Honda v Denmark
Japan’s dead-ball specialist hits one from the right, 35 yards out. It wobbles, rises and swerves into the net in a quite extraordinary fashion. It must have been the way he hit it and the nature of the ball. The keeper doesn’t stand a chance and can’t even put himself behind it.
David Luiz v Colombia
Brazil’s sideshow Bob runs up to a dead ball 35 yards out and strikes it with the side of his foot. Unusual in itself. Even more so that it sped into the top corner at pace. It looks like a powerful pass. Understandably he loses his mind.
Elano v Colo-Colo
An aerodynamic feat. It’s an apparently straightforward 40-yard drive into the goal, except the ball does several gymnastics along the way, going right and left so dramatically that the keeper doesn’t know which way to go before it’s past him.
Juninho Pernambucano v Ajax
The best ever dead-ball specialist, here Juninho takes a free-kick from the right that must be 45 yards out and confidently strikes it hard into the goal. It’s so far out that it dips and rises and floats before hitting the net. He did this all the time, it wasn’t just a lucky strike.
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Martin Watts v Dorchester Town
Just to prove that anyone can do this, even in the fifth tier, he strikes the ball from fully 40 yards out, just in front of the centre circle and it loops dramatically into the goal like he’s an international, bouncing once in front of the helpless keeper.
David Beckham v Greece
You know how it goes. It’s actually a brilliant arcing free-kick which goes into the top corner, or top bins or postage stamp depending whose sofa you’re sitting on. His technique is flawless and the whole thing has perfect balance and dynamics.
Roberto Carlos v France
A really famous one. First it’s about 35 yards out, second he takes a massive long run-up. So far, so strange. He hits it about five yards wide of the right-hand post and it looks to be going wide, then swerves violently to the left past Fabien Barthez into the corner of the net. He spent the rest of his career trying to reproduce it, but never did – presumably perhaps Roberto Carlos himself reckons it was a fluke.
Cristiano Ronaldo v Portsmouth
Back when he was good, the preening narcissist performs his pre-kick ritual then as now, which almost never results in a goal. Only this time instead of hitting the wall, he hits it up and over, past David James into the top corner. It dips and this was the ‘knuckle ball’ he squandered endless opportunities trying to do it again, failing and becoming a laughing stock, tarnishing a peerless reputation in the meantime.
Lasse Schone v Real Madrid
Unusual because it’s wide on the right, by the touchline, about 25 yards out. To get it in, he curls it from right to left and into the top corner, in a looping fashion. Probably the best looking strike of all. It has everything. Distance, height, a hard angle and movement.
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