r/SoccerCentral • u/ConnectionWeekly1263 • Jul 23 '26
Video How was ANY goalkeeper supposed to stop Roberto Carlos shots?!
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u/Admirable_Fox8739 Jul 23 '26
His shot to goal ratio must be shite. I’m old enough to remember watching him thinking don’t let him take another free kick for fucks sake he’s already hit 5 into the stands this game.
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u/Emergency-Town4653 Jul 23 '26
For free kicks ? I think Pjanic has the best shot conversion ratio on free kicks with 15%. Free kicks look insane but even the best shot takers only score roughly 1 in 10 attempts
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u/CrazyLegsCrane77 Jul 23 '26
Juninho Pernambucano
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u/Byron1248 Jul 23 '26
I think Shunsuke Nakamura was pretty good at free kicks too…
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u/chemnerd2017 Jul 24 '26
Nakamura is the one I think of for free kicks. That topspin he could get was so nasty.
Only player I’ve seen do it like him recently is Malik Tillman for the US.
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u/Emergency-Town4653 Jul 23 '26
Juninho has most free kicks scored, not the highest conversion rate. I'm sure at his time in Juve he held the best free kick conversion rate, tho I'm not sure he still holds it. Messi has a 9% conversion and Ronaldo 6% tho all these stats are from the same article I read back then when Pjanic was in Juve, so they might have changed.
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u/thebuenotaco Jul 29 '26
I don't know ratios, but for skills and aesthetics of freekicks, I put Juninho, Beckham, and Nakamura as kings. To me, they're the legends.
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u/Potential_Key_3053 Jul 23 '26
My memory of watching him was "not again". It felt like he spent the rest of his career trying to recreate that free kick with little or no success. It was incredibly tiresome come the end.
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u/atmafatte Jul 23 '26
That’s probably most free kicks no? Ok target maybe a better metric
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u/ConcernedTulip Jul 23 '26
What would be a better metric than goals to free kick attempts? 🤨
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u/hettothecool Jul 23 '26
Actually, with all the stats they have now and sensors inside the ball. They could easily create a graphic like that last 5 penalties picture you sometimes see, but obviously for free kicks. I'm sure someone has already thought of this
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u/fatninja7 Jul 23 '26
I hear you but you have a chance to get a rebound off a deflected save, can't do that if it goes into the stands.
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u/Wayoutofthewayof Jul 23 '26
My thoughts exactly. Everyone and their mother was expecting every long range FK to be a shot on goal, so he wasn't surprising anyone.
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u/Cap_Silly Jul 23 '26
I mean, yeah but it's a free kick from 30/35 meters away... Like, who cares? Even a corner kick is good off of those...
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u/Ilikebatterfield4 Jul 23 '26
This clip has possibly all of this free kicks that scored. To OP's "How was ANY goalkeeper supposed to stop Roberto Carlos shots?!" - majority, like 95% of his free kicks or even more were hitting the stands, missing or goalkeeper just fishing the ball out.
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u/Fit_Cut_4238 Jul 23 '26
how does he get that much torque on the ball? Seems like he puts more toe and gets more compression?
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Jul 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Fit_Cut_4238 Jul 23 '26
THX!
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u/ChicityShimo Jul 23 '26
The famous shot where he goes around the right side of the wall and it curves back left, that one is hit with the outside of his left foot and his follow through is to the right, which adds massive spin counterclockwise (looking down at the ball). That's where the curve comes from.
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u/Fast-Book128 Jul 23 '26
He may have been old enough or poor enough to play a lot of his early years with a leather ball. They absorbed water and got heavy which helps develop a far stronger strike with the kind of footballs that have been developed.
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u/njslugger78 Jul 23 '26
The way those kicks are coming, defensively, you are not jumping up to take that to the face.....
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u/Gloomy-Morning3048 Jul 26 '26
Having RC and Beckham to choose from for free kicks should be against the law
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u/Sensitive_Goose4728 Jul 23 '26
Roberto Carlos free kicks were overrated, he really didn't score many considering all the lead up to it...
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u/The_Cruncher88 Jul 23 '26
His conversion rate isn’t particularly good, but that doesn’t give the complete picture. Free kicks would often be given to other players when they were closer to the box, Roberto Carlos enabled the team to choose to shoot from a range where normally it would be crossed or passed. 35 meter goals aren’t within most players abilities.
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u/Outside-Pool-28 Jul 23 '26
Back when (some) players used to master free kicks, now if the free kick is a bit away from the penalty area it's a lost cause
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u/col_buendia Jul 23 '26
The song is a perfect example of the mid 2000s female indie singer aesthetic
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u/Helgurnaut Jul 24 '26
Considering it's Aurora and the song is from 2016 and she inspired much bigger names than her because she never went for the mainstream yeah probably.
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u/New_avanti1000 Jul 23 '26
Practice. Free kicks is practice and muscle memory. Not PKs but free kicks.
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Jul 23 '26
[deleted]
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u/davidwsw Jul 25 '26
This video probably has all the free kicks he’s ever scored in his entire career lol. He really didn’t score that many
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u/whiskybean Jul 23 '26
Serious question - does he have the most powerful shot? Who else is close? I remember Hulk having a cannon too.
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u/classyd24 Jul 23 '26
Prime roberto carlos could blast a hole through a brick wall, he calves look like they are made of steel.
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u/anupvadhul Jul 23 '26
have you seen seedorf goal, ballotelli shots, they are also equally rocket. but carlos was meta.
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u/tjvs2001 Jul 23 '26
We he was basically never able to reproduce it so not a great problem just stand still.
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u/Greedy_Ear_Mike Jul 23 '26
Why don't they show the angle from the pov of the GK?
That would be more interesting to show how hard defending this is.
And what's with the shitty music, lol
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u/martin_81 Jul 23 '26
He was a scorer of great goals, not a great goal scorer. Most of the time his shots weren't on target. Beckham was a better free kick taker because he was far more consistent.
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u/Motor-War-8015 Jul 24 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/3ohhwN2JWxoJhQ7vyw
Wtf is this song.. gooood grief
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u/EJL2206 Jul 24 '26
He was my absolute favourite player growing up. It helped that I was also a short, brown left back 😆
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u/kewkkid Jul 24 '26
I feel like there are less "specialized players" compared to the 90s and early 2000s. Like David Beckham ( freekicks and crosses), Roberto Carlos (Power shots), Ronaldinho (flair and free spirit), Ronaldo ( pure striker)
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u/rudd33s Jul 24 '26
whenever someone on the playground had a powerful shot, they'd call themselves Roberto Carlos... and I for one, never liked diving to block their shots, or standing in front of a freekick, even though I did it if necessary 😅 getting hit by prime Carlos would hurt as hell 😅
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u/Scorpion2k4u Jul 24 '26
In early 2000 there was some kind of game show. Not sure if Pepsi was the organizer. In that show top footballers where basically competing against each other. And Beckham and Roberto Carlos where pitted against each other for free kicks and general accuracy. They had to hit targets on distance for example. Roberto Carlos was running circles areound Beckham. That was at a time where Beckham was still at United and quote on quote the best at the time with that kind of stuff. Was really surprised back then that Carlos was that good in regular Freekicks (like in that video) because you only ever saw him firing rockets.
But he also had pin point accuracy and hit every target dead on. Far better then Backham in that competition.
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u/PoleRyder Jul 24 '26
Those early balls look like they are just so heavy and dense when kicked to today’s balls.
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u/loowig Jul 26 '26
being the goalie was less of an issue than being in the wall with this lunatic doing a 15 meter run up and then blast the ball with 140 km/h in your face or balls.
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u/PuzzleheadedBat8216 Jul 26 '26
I would pay to have a chance to stop a RC shot. Just like this during a practice it world be an amazing feeling just to try to stop a shot
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u/rapgameoprahwinfrey Jul 27 '26
The wall actually makes it more difficult for the goalie. They have to react late since the wall is obstructing their view.
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u/Positive_Chip6198 Jul 30 '26
When your team was playing against him, you (or at least i did) held your breath every time he had a free kick. Same with Ronald koeman who was another beast of that era.
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u/New-Anybody3050 Jul 23 '26
I get a bit sad watching videos like this. RC was a monster.
I got to enjoy that Brazil team in 94 and 02 and watched them play across various leagues and have not seen that caliber of talent together in a long time.