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Free kicks in football come with a certain degree of theatre. A hush descends in the stands as defensive walls shift nervously, adjusting to their goalkeeper’s directions. And then – crack – a violent whip of the taker’s boot, a ball zipping through the air, the net ripples, the tension snaps and delirium ensues.
The best free kicks are bits of footballing artistry, where technique and audacity combine to produce spectacular moments.
The players who hit them best tend to become cult heroes, not just because they scored, but because they turned dead balls into live action, making fans feel like they were witnessing something timeless.
To honour those who wielded more dead-ball mastery than most, we’ve ranked the best free-kick takers in football history.
10. Andrea Pirlo
Midfield schemer Andrea Pirlo didn’t hit free kicks, he painted them. The playmaker delivered precision strokes for club and country with the nonchalance of a man ordering an espresso in quiet a café.
Like the rest of his play, Pirlo approached free kicks with little drama. His mastery of the “maledetta” – a dipping, weaving knuckleball – made him a deadly assassin from set pieces. His goals against Mexico (2013 Confederations Cup) and Croatia (Euro 2012) were an economy of motion and class.
Pirlo scored around 30 times directly from free kicks over the span on his career with the Italian national team, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus.
9. Cristiano Ronaldo
His free-kick stats have cooled off in recent years, however, veteran superstar Cristiano Ronaldo’s knuckleballs were once a headline act. The Portuguese attacker’s gunslinger stance and dramatic intake of breath were iconic, as was his willingness to shoot from just about any distance.
There was substance to go along with his pre-strike dramatics, however. Ronaldo’s sledgehammer strike against Portsmouth in 2008 still rattles frames in the collective memory.
For Manchester United in particular, he was a shock trooper and his Exocet missiles burst nets in the Premier and Champions League alike. Some of his efforts were wild, but when it worked, it wowed.
8. Ronald Koeman
Ronald Koeman had many top-class attributes; however, the “blonde arrow” was best known for his ability from dead balls. Koeman was a no-nonsense defender and an expert game-reading sweeper, but his eye-catching strikes from range were his show stoppers.
Koeman won a European Cup Final for Barcelona in 1992 with a sublime free kick goal against Sampdoria, though he did that sort of thing on the regular and the stats show that the Dutchman hit a mammoth 60 goals from free kicks during his pomp.
Indeed, Koeman remains the all-time top-scoring defender in world football history with 253 goals.
7. Sinisa Mihajlovic
Sinisa Mihajlovic’s hammer of a left foot produced free kicks that were like cannonballs dipped in a Molotov cocktail. The defender still holds the record in Italy’s Serie A for most free-kick goals scored (28) and the Vukovar-born slugger once notched a hattrick of them in a single sitting for Lazio against Sampdoria in 1998.
While others went for subtlety, Mihajlovic embraced raw power and flat trajectory. He wasn’t concerned about bending shots around a wall – he was happy to go through it. A product of Yugoslav grit and Italian steel, his set-pieces were consistently menacing.
6. David Beckham
Often underrated as a footballing force, David Beckham was a sensational performer and few footballers have a greater association with free kicks than the former England international.
Beckham was a dead-ball obsessive, who had practiced taking free kicks to the point of insanity as a developing kid. His dedication to the craft and his own unique technique made him absolutely deadly.
His free kicks were cinematic in style, with amazing whips and arcs that would leave ailing goalkeepers glued in position. Beckham’s goal against Greece to earn World Cup qualification for the Three Lions was a seminal English football moment, though he has an equally fantastic catalogue at club level for Manchester United and Real Madrid.
5. Zico
Rolling back the years a little, we turn to Zico. Before the modern era, Zico was bending reality and defying physics with his free-kick acumen.
Nicknamed the “While Pele” (before Wayne Rooney was even born), Zico used short run-ups and deceptive body shapes to con keepers and he was able to find top corners from any distances with minimal back lift.
Zico’s legacy is felt every time a current Brazilian star tries to channel a bit of his memory through their laces.
4. Ronaldinho
Ronaldinho will always be remembered with fondness for the expression and sheer joy he put into every touch. The enigmatic Brazilian approached his free kicks with typical imagination and could hurt opponents from dead balls in any number of ways.
From no-look free kicks and quick-thinking daisy cutters under walls to curling efforts from wide areas and pinpoint finishes, Ronaldinho could do it all. He was a risk-taker who put street football cunning into his set plays and his tally of 55 goals from free kicks points to his potency.
3. Rogerio Ceni
A legend of domestic football in Brazil, goalkeeper Rogerio Ceni was both a shot-stopper and a shot-taker during his epic career with his beloved Sao Paulo between 1993 and 2015.
Ceni was an accomplished keeper who won 17 caps for Brazil, though his prowess during set pieces was phenomenal. The net minder scored a gigantic 130 goals during his career and 59 of those efforts were delivered directly from free kicks.
Unsurprisingly, Ceni ranks as the top-scoring goalkeeper of all time – by quite a distance – with the Brazilian scoring almost twice as many as his nearest competitor, Paraguayan star Jose Luis Chilavert.
2. Lionel Messi
Because he is so good at….well….virtually everything else, Lionel Messi’s quality from free kicks tends to go a little under the radar. With the Argentinean, subtlety and precision are usually applied like an elite violinist striking the perfect note under pressure.
Messi is accurate enough to hit a laser dot on the horizon, so he rarely has to opt for power to send free kicks past goalkeepers. The diminutive attacker has whispered half a century of goals over walls and into top corners and his tally is likely to climb higher before he eventually calls time on his incredible career.
A favourite with anytime goalscorer punters on the best online football betting sites, Messi’s magical left foot still has the power to turn a game on its head, particularly from dangerous positions around the edge of the box.
1. Juninho Pernambucano
Ask any football fan to name the best free-kick taker of all time and Juninho will come into the reckoning. The Brazilian maestro could make the ball float, dip, swerve and plunge like a leaf caught in a storm.
Proximity was never an issue, Juninho treated 40-yard punts like tap ins and he was one of the pioneers of the knuckleball technique.
His YouTube highlight reel features one logic-defying strike after another. The former Lyon midfielder remains a reference point for players in the modern era who are keen to hone their own free-kick-taking craft.
According to the statistics, Juninho Pernambucano hit 77 career free-kick goals for club and country, making him football’s most effective weapon ever from dead balls.
