Strategy
Most teams have one or two designated free kick takers, depending on the distance from goal and the side of the field the free kick is to be taken from. The strategy may be to score a goal directly from the free kick, or to use the free kick as the beginning of a set play leading towards a goal scoring opportunity.
Where there is a potential for a dangerous shot on goal to occur from a direct free kick often the defending side erects a "wall" of players standing side-by-side as a barrier to the shot. A kicker who has the skill to curl the ball around a wall is at a distinct advantage.
Select players known for their extraordinary skill in this special form of kicking ability have been Steven Gerrard, Mehmet Scholl, Didier Drogba, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronald Koeman, Zico, Johan Neeskens, Pierre van Hooijdonk, Andrea Pirlo, Roberto Carlos, Juninho, Marcos Assunção, Shunsuke Nakamura, Rivaldo, Rogério Ceni, Alessandro Del Piero, Wesley Sneijder, Sebastian Larsson, Juan Román Riquelme, David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldinho, Sejad Salihović, Nolberto Solano, Siniša Mihajlović, Diego Maradona, Alvaro Recoba, Marcelinho Carioca and José Luis Chilavert.
Another strategy for free kicks is to "knuckle" the ball by hitting it on the top of the foot so it will go over the wall then dip immediately towards goal. Footballers known for this style are Juninho, Andrea Pirlo, Alessandro Del Piero, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nelinho, Sebastian Larsson, Mirko Vucinic, Didier Drogba, Ryan Taylor, Keisuke Honda, Marcos Assunção, Marcelinho Carioca and Diego Maradona.
Read more about this topic: Direct Free Kick
Famous quotes containing the word strategy:
“Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war?”
—Bible: Hebrew, 2 Kings 18:20.
“To a first approximation, the intentional strategy consists of treating the object whose behavior you want to predict as a rational agent with beliefs and desires and other mental states exhibiting what Brentano and others call intentionality.”
—Daniel Clement Dennett (b. 1942)
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)