Late-career Ronaldo on FKs reminds me of late-career Roberto Carlos on FKs. Running on reputation from some insane strikes, relentlessly putting the ball into Row Z.

I really wondered why he almost always went for power. His freekicks with less power seem to be way more dangerous like the 3-3 Freekick against Spain in the WC comes to mind

Most infuriating thing about his Juventus free kick struggles was the fact, that for majority of that time Juve had 2 great direct free kick takers - right-footed Pjanić and left-footed Dybala... Yet it was pretty much always Ronaldo who took them.

The dip in la liga average freekick efficiency after Messi left😭

"He's a scorer of great free kicks than a consistent scorer" couldn't have put it any better 👍

Pretty good at a time, pretty terrible in recent years, those United Free-kicks were something else.

Insane how Ronaldo got worse at free kicks as his career went on and Messi got better at free kicks as his career went on

It’s because he literally does his little routine before shooting and that prepares goalkeepers. Messi on the other hand can either shoot or pass because that’s what his history has shown. If Ronaldo whipped in a ball and someone scored it, after doing his routine, then he could score more. I mean Messi literally was doing just whatever with his free kicks some times. Power shots, curled shots, low driven, chip shots, passes, he’s scored form ridiculous free kick angles as well. He has variety for free kicks and that’s basically the equivalent of being two-footed so goal keepers and defenders don’t know where you’re going or when you’re shooing. However Ronaldo always shoots, it’s a lot easier to save a shot if you know they’re going to shoot instead of putting a ball in the box.

the issue i have with cr7 is that there were always better free kick taker on the team

His free kick against Marseille in the 09/10 UCL isn't appreciated enough

disrespecting ronaldo is a bandwagon that many creators been riding on and I am honestly tired of seeing people questionning this man's abilities to play the beautiful game. Let the man have a quiet retirement he deserves it I know this is a an amazing video and it's well made but nevertheless the guy was a genius on the pitch and watching him play felt like a lucid dream for years, it was so beautiful you could cry watching every single detail of it. Same goes for messi by the way but people disrespected greatly one of the greats and it hurts to see all the world doing this to a man that many thought he was a cyborg at some point the real original cyborg. Perhaps he was too good that people actually hated facing him and when a lion ages and show signs of weakness cowards strike perhaps that's why many people know loudly being negative towards the man instead of appreciating history being made right in front of them. I wish we get to see a player like him once again and relive something this absurdly breath taking.

Part of being a good free kick taker is knowing when to play the ball into a dangerous area instead of shooting. Trying to explain away the lower efficiency rate because he happens to take more shots farther away doesn't strike me as a good argument, knowing when not to take that shot is absolutely a consideration when talking about somebody being good at free kicks. You frame it as "it's low BUT because of this" instead of framing it as "it's low because he's making bad decisions."

His greatest free kick achievement was still hitting the one-man wall of Philipp Lahm from like 40 meters.

I remember that 3-3 freekick against spain like it was yesterday. I remember there was this feeling that it was obvious he was gonna score from there. I don't know why but in that moment it felt like he was the best free kick taker in the world.

His Tendinosis is never covered in the media, that injury and the succeeding knee issues hampered his 2014 WC and completely changed his game from a winger to a monster finisher. Without it, we would have continued seeing the 2012-14 Ronaldo dribbles and flair well into his later years.

His rise in fame with free kicks was from knuckleballs. They were rare and less understood. But naturally they became less effective when teams expected him to do it, learned how to to deal with them, and he lost the sheer athleticism to do them emphatically. Without the novelty and brute force, they became less effective than a conventional well placed, well stuck curler. 🤷‍♂️

There was a period where you knew he wasn't just going to miss, but sail it way over the goal.

At Real Madrid we always groaned when we saw CR7 about to take a free kick, we knew we were giving up a good chance. And the rare ocasion when he scored was worse because it gave him credit to kick the next hundred

"Why are your free kicks so consistent?" "Consistent?"

The reason Ronaldo closes his eyes before a free kick is he's deciding to either give a free ball away to someone in row z or try to injure some in the wall who was tackling him a bit too hard.

He had his moments

Most legendary ronaldo free kick is against germany, where he hit Lahm who was the only one in the wall. Probably harder than hitting the goal.

Bro hit a 1-man-wall. Enough said

I think there might be an error in your data as he scored a free kick for Manchester United vs Norwich in 21/22 so he can’t be on 0% conversion for that season

This is a very well balanced analysis of Ronaldo's free kick record. Videos like these are why I subscribed. It would be nice to see a free kick series looking at some of the best.

The fact that he was allowed to take free kicks ahead of Pjanic and Dybala is criminal. Two of the best in the world and they were stuck behind this siuuuuu merchant

I honestly think the main reason his free-kicking quality diminished drastically was simply because he stopped practicing as much. When he went to MU he was known for practicing his free-kicks for hours after training. This was at a time he was a midfielder and still needed to prove himself. When he went to Real, he was already a Ballon D'Or winner that had won everything at MU, plus, he switched positions to a more offensive role. I would argue at Real he practised free-kicks less because he had to focus on other Attacker qualities, and unlike Messi, Ronaldo is not pure talent, he is a product of hard-work, as he stopped practising free-kicks he got worse at it.

Ronaldo getting cooked in the comments 😂😂😂

When Ronaldo takes a free kick, the GK goes for a sip of tea while he watches Ronaldo send the ball into space.

Funfact: From 2003 to 2013 Ronaldo scored 40 freekicks. If he had kept that pace he would have had around 80 freekick goals today which is insane.

out of curiousity. is it possible to do about all the top scoring freekick takers? would be interesting to see how all the great legends stacks up against each other.

At his best years he was excellent. He could score with 2 techniques, the knuckle shot vs Atletico's Courtois in 2011/2012, or the standard curler vs Atletico's Oblak (can't remember which season). And then the declining years where he'd always shoot it to the wall. He had a couple goals using curler (vs Torino and Sweden) but somehow he abandoned it and always back to hitting the wall technique. From a guy who was great at adapting to new roles and loved setting records, it's ironic that he didn't adapt his freekick technique to a better one. Maybe he wanted to set most freekick attempts?

I remember two of his free kicks one against Wolfsburg is Champion's league and one against Spain in WC 18 both were scored in super high pressure games and both seemed almost impossible the Wolfsburg one especially

Someone has to say it and I will- Ronaldo on the floor demanding a foul to be called is such an iconic image.

In Manchester back in days he was too good at free kicks. He was expected to score almost every game. His technique was top notch and on of my favourite of all time

I feel like everyone in the comments is ignoring the most important part of the video about him going for a goal no matter the FK distance

Used to be one of the best during his time at United and first few seasons in Madrid.

In Utd spell, nobody doubted his free kick taking. But since over about 2013, he's just pathetic at it.

Love how unbiased this was. Great video.

Any footy player knows that the knuckle shot is a hit and hope but my god does it look good when it comes off

ronaldo free kick vs portsmouth is the greatest free kick ive ever seen.

I’ll never forget his free kick against Germany in 2014

“Comparisons and statistics only tell part of the story” NO. They tell the story. It’s just how lazy the data analysts/ writers want to be about it. I assume everyone here knows football. So obviously 2nd chance attempts are understood to be important. And it’s also critical to analyze players who shoot from dead balls do so with a high degree on target otherwise follow up is irrelevant. Ball flight is the key variable here. The keepers inability to maintain possession is key. It’s much like a long shot in hockey. They are fine if they are let glove side saves mitted and instead bobbled. For instance, of the past 100 free kick chances between 2019 and 2022, Ronaldo netted only 3. But 20 were directly on target and another 3 were scored on immediate follow ups. 16 needed to be saved. A heavy majority went straight to corners. And even more were low ricochets that stayed in the attacking 3rd. His free kicks were about maintaining Possession. Why does a channel with a million subs not investigate that? That’s interesting on its own. How about Ronaldo was solely responsible for delivering balls 35-25 yards especially whereas many other specialists had someone else serve these ? How about many other specialists have a significantly worse Rate at which possession is maintained? For instance Messi netted 8 in his last 100, but of those 92 remaining he was much worse at helping his club maintain the ball. Bc the delivering concept was entirely different and the purpose not the same, the small margins missed meant they were goal kicks mostly. But from indirect follows that we’re immediate plus direct goals, he’s not far behind the best in the world statistically. And not even factoring in his threat was upwards of 10 yards deeper than most others could provide. Inside 35 yards wirb Ronaldo you had to be wary of a goal. That’s much different defensively entirely than someone not matching this.

Thank you for making this. I'm sick of the myth that Ronaldo is one of the best freekick takers ever

To be fair to him being the second best player called Ronaldo is an impressive feat

Funny thing is that Keylor Navas told him on several occasions if he took power off his free kicks and went for placement, he'd score way more goals.

2nd half of the video is very good, you explained a lot of the context. 👍

They didn't keep really detailed stats during his playing days, so it is difficult to do an empirical comparison, but most who watched him at the time tend to fall upon Juninho Pernambucano as the best (i.e. most consistent) free kick taker of all.

That was a actually a really good analysis, I do think his tendinosis had a part to play, but also most probably his Efficiency went down as well, sad as his free kicks really were special

Imagine if he had instead chosen to be the receiver with indirect freekick, he would have added a lot more goals.

Back in the day when watching Barcelona during their mighty era .... Whenever real madrid got a free kick I cheered "YES!" , I knew the first freekick always goes above to goal or straight up wide. Second freekick will hit the wall... and 3rd is the one you have to look out for, because thats when Cr7 had synchronized his shot.

Since people always talk about how it was unfair to Dybala and Pjanic.I'll give a shout out to Gareth Bale who also suffered for this.Even though he was always beloved,Bale never seemed to get his recognition as a great free kick taker.I mean there was a time in Tottenham where he only knew how to score long shots and free kicks.

Oddly enough La Liga free kick drop off was the year MESSI left to PSG 🥲🥲🥲

Thanks for this video, infos are deep

can you do a video on why juninho pernabecano was so good at free kicks ?

I always felt Messi and Ronaldo were on teams with other players on the pitch who would be better options. Due to "imagery" (sponsors) and public pressure, people always wanted those two to take them. In truth that neither are top 10 free kick takers of all time

Real Madrid had Bale and Kroos on thier team but this guy was stinking it up 24/7.

You could have easily accounted for goalkeeping performance by counting the saves from his free kicks. At least judging from his Portugal free kick-taking, I got the impression he couldn't even get it on goal, let alone actually score. Whenever he got a free kick for Portugal, my friends and I would place bets on whether it would hit the wall or the stands. He was once very good at free kicks, but he should have admitted that he just doesn't have it anymore and let colleagues take them instead. The result has been bad conversion rates for Portugal and Juventus/Man United and further damage to Ronaldo's image as a world-class player.

The goal keepers in general have gotten much better over CR7s career. You hardly see any long distance goal anymore. In general a modern top tier goalie is expected to hold every shot outside the box.

Yes he was in 2006 - 2009 😂 as a united fan i was spoiled with Beckhams Free Kick but Ronaldo took it to another level. I still remember his FK goals against Portsmouth in 2008 & Arsenal in 2009, those were glorious. IDK what happened afterwards, probably his ego and people dared not to tell him to change his FK style.

Ronaldo was the best "one season wonders" free kick takers

tifo man pls dont stop making videos

Another thing with Ronaldo is that he almost always never scores free kicks against the biggest teams.

Instead the conversation percentage shouldn't the combined xG of the shot come into effect to tell if he is a good free kick taker?

I always assumed his attitude was not to score but to damage the shins of the opposition in the wall as to make it potentially easier to score later on in the game?

I think he bought into his free-kick technique like he did his signature celebration. It was part of the "brand", that this is the way Ronaldo takes free kicks so this is the way it will be thus.

He was good early on, pre 2014 but people don't understand that injury he got in his left knee, he had to change and adapt because he couldn't dribble as much anymore too, he had to transition to a striker because of it.

I remember at a period of time when he was in Real Madrid where opponents feared any free kick he was taking.

Ronaldo pretty much relies on power rather than technique. Messi always has that finesse, one could observe that Messi's freekick is always aimed at the corners and most of the time it just flies in, no power just pure finesse

Would love to see the same for the aforementioned Beckham, JWP

Just reading the comments it's very simple to explain why Ronaldo got worse at free kicks: the knee injury he got in the early 2010's! After that injury his technique of power was never the same and he kind of lost his magic 🪄. Still he has some amazing free kicks like the one against Arsenal and the one against Spain.

I’ve never seen a player who prides themselves on perfection seemingly make 0 effort to improve his technique after all these years of failed kicks that don’t even beat the walls

Kind of curious, how many of those expected rebounds/erros ended in goals?

A lot of data is missing for a useful comparison. The first is the average free kick conversion in the 5 leagues prior to his drop off, can't rate a player as "good" at free kicks or not, without an average for comparison throughout his career. Also, how many of his free kicks resulted in goals from rebounds or goalkeeper parries? Doesn't matter if he didn't score directly from a free kick if his free kicks directly led to a goal. Another dataset could be the proportion of free-kicks that clear the wall and on target, but this would be more time consuming to acquire.

Cristiano free Kick goals are enjoyable to watch

He is only there for the spectacle, thats his whole selling point.

He just scored free kick recently,35+ yards against Abha 👍🔥

It would've been great to see the free-kick rebound goals aswell since these were taken for that purpose. He did many of these free-kicks throughout his carreer, and, it's also why he took longer ranging free-kicks. These type of free-kicks make sense, specially from the more frontal areas where it's harder to cross, because they create 2 possible attempts at goal with relative ease, risk, and, to a lesser extent, corners. These were just a few thoughts out of the top of my head from whatching the video, not to mention, he essentially developed a new form of nuckle ball. It's strange none of this was mentioned, maybe it's more irrelevant than i thought.

Be careful his fans is very scary 🤣🤣🤣

If the best recent FK taker’s conversion percentage is 10% . It’s fair to say that FK aren’t efficient ways to directly score in general. Yeah it’s cool when it happens and especially so from further away, but idk if it should contribute much to our evaluations since it’s such a low percentage.

These stats don't say much if not adjusted for range/xg

His Ego always lets him down...He was superb at freekicks at Man united 2003-08 when Messi scored only 3.But year after year he got worse with losing power to knuckleball.Surprisingly he still curl the ball like 3-3 Spain, and Juventus -Girona 2-1.But still keeps doing the same rubbish

I dont think this is a fair evaluation for 1 simple reason: Ronaldo took knuckle ball power free kicks bc it looked cool when he scored and that's what we came to expect. His regular boring curved free kicks were efficient whenever he would try them.

This has been something I have been noticing for a while with Ronaldo.

It's not up for discussion that before the injury Ronaldo was one of the very greatest long range free kick takers of all time. The same applies for overall free kicks. Ever since the injury. He's become dreadful at them and should've stopped taking then but it doesn't even come close to destroying his legacy, which is why a Ronaldo free kick will always be a special moment.

Next: Is Romeo Beckham A Good Footballer?!?! 🤔🤨🧐

Great work and very interesting videos!!

Great insights!

His technique is such that if not practiced daily it won't work.

He was good at freekicks I think as the years went by he either didn’t practice them enough or he didn’t find out what worked for him and perfect it

Remember his freekick against 1-man wall in vs Germany? He managed to hit the 1 man wall....

If you watched Beckham, Juninho and Ronaldinho by comparison you’d know that CR7 was more on the spectacular side than being the most reliable at free kicks. By virtue of mastering their specific technique I’d imagine Becks et al could still bend them w/ decent regularity well into retirement lol. Mark Hughes once questioned how CR7’s knee would hold up due to his technique. Clearly he was hitting and hoping towards the end lol.

CR7's earlier success with free kicks is largely due to his pure athleticism in making his shots with power and speed, not placements. Think of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Roberto Carlos. Once teams found out that CR7 doesn't place at the corner most of the time, he's been found out and hence his free kick conversion dwindles significantly

You got a player who had some serious injuries nobody ever talks about. Messi for the most part his injuries were not as big of a factor as Ronaldo’s knee injury. I wanna say ronaldo is so fit he was able to bounce back but into a different role but only the true CR7 fans will know how his speed was before the knee problem. It was unreal

are there these stats for ward-prowse?

I remember playing club soccer… our center forward took all our free kicks. He blasted every single one has hard as he could and maybe scored one goal of free kicks all year. He was out one game so I took our one free kick and scored…. Our coach never let me take another one again lol. Sometimes we cave to our “star players” even if it hurts out results.

Tired of you people trying to gain subscribers/views on Ronaldo clickbait slander. Unsubscribing

That’s why he’s known as Penaldo not Freenaldo.

CR7 literally lived off his Portsmouth FK goal

Have always thought his free kicks were overrated because, on the odd occasion they came off, they were spectacular. Watching him line it up in the later years was eye-roll inducing, particularly as there were usually free kick takers in the squad who were better than he ever was.