I can explain it in spanish but not in english =P but I'll try. That kind of hit is called "seco" in spanish, "dry" translated literally. If you hit the ball strong but with lowest contact, the ball moves with high speed and straight but after a while it loses speed and gets effect.
When you shoot with effect your foot hits the ball to give strength and direction, and also touches the ball to make it start turning over himself to get the desired effect. In this way your foot gives it a harder hit with a lower contact "exposure" to force the "later" effect, that usually moves the ball down in shoots known as "folha seca", brazilian words for "dried leaf" because this shoots resemble a leaf falling from a tree when they lose their initial speed.
An easy way to understand this is a balloon, punch hard a ballon in the center and it will move fast and far away from you and after loosing a bit of speed it will start turning getting the effect.
Look, the ball always goes up and strong and after more than the half of the distance it loses speed and falls down.
Watch Juninho Pernambucano's free kicks, there's plenty of them available online so there should be ones where you can clearly see how he kicks the ball. You should understand what is it all about after some time I think ;-)
and ronaldo really does something different from others, although juninho has shot similar freekicks in the sense that they drop a lot suddenly and are usually shot over the wall rather than bending around or whatnot, he's never been shooting with the same force and power. something interesting is that most freekick takers usually try to find an elevated spot for the ball. ronaldo actually presses it down into the ground. then he shoots with like a combination of his toes and wrist, incredibly hard, and he kinda shoots downwards, from the top of the ball.. I also honestly don't think these freekicks would have been even possible to shoot 5 years ago but the new balls give room for new techniques.
Yeah, in the last world cup lots of players complained about this ball cause it favors a lot of kicking from outside the area and no real play...
You can see the numbers of goals per world cup. The first cups had loads because some teams were very shitty and some ruled. Then it felt down, then they amde the goal bigger, then changed the ball and you see more and more goals...
I'm watching the copa del rey quarterfinals betwee barca and villareal. Messi taking pascal cygan to school getting him two yellow cards in 3 minutes all by dribbling the shit out of him. Henry scored on set-piece 1-0
The weird thing is that he is not doing a full 'instep kick' but takes it a little with the inside of the foot. And still he gets it to bend to the right as if he had taken it with the outside. So he must hit it a little from the outside. And he has his left foot very close to the ball, slightly in front of it. I always do that because it makes it easier to aim (cause you can make sure that you don't accidentally lean back) but I feel it makes my shots weaker. He must have a lot of explosive power in his legs. :D
C.Ronaldo is SO good. And he even lost his pussy behaviour. Hes just such an outstanding player. This freekick was absolutely amazing !? Wtf ? Its like .. hes using a new technique or so .. im just impressed..
On February 01 2008 15:00 FragKrag wrote: Holy shit, C. Ronaldo is fucking badass, but nobody can compare with Kaká in my mind
No, seriously. Kaka is very very very good, but really you can't compare them. And, as of right now, C. Ronaldo has been much more important to Man. Uted than Kaka to Milan. Kaka isn't playing that great lately.
i'm always first to bash players like cristiano and zlatan, but i gotta admit, ronaldo is nuts right now. What kind of soccer asset doesn't the guy have?? he has it all, speed, skills, shooting...hes becoming such a complete player. I was speechless when i saw highlights of his freekick. Fuckin insane stuff. Hes on another planet right now. Football just seems to be getting better and better these days, so many great goals and players day in and day out. Adebayor is becoming the new drogba, Riquelme is as insane as ever with set plays. I love it!
good day for arsenal. possible 5 point lead tomorrow, thatd be immense.
as much as the spotlight is on Ronaldo atm, he really needs Rooney to play alongside him for maximum effect and fluency. At the beginning of the season when Rooney was injured for a month they were barely scrapping out 1-0 wins against Birmingham. Suspended for 1 match today and disaster strikes..
Chelski missed their big chance to prove themselves as the real dark horse of the season. Liverpool... unfortunately has Inter to deal with in Champions League.
C'moooon gooners~ if Arsenal go all the way and Adebayor ends up top scorer (18 to Ronaldo's 19 right now) despite all Ronaldo's bravado i wouldnt be surprised to see him win player of the season.
EPT
