That's probably the most perfect freekick ever. It's not knuckleball, it's on the keeper's favoured side and yet he will never ever save that. Perfect placing.

messi is the greatest player to ever play the sport, and possibly the greatest to ever play any sport. its almost absurd, to be totally honest

you can kick the ball back into your half at kick-off now? or is it just at half-time? just saw it being done in this game.

New rule that you don't have to kickoff forwards. It's been happening in the Euros too.

giving a pass to the euros. nonsense tourney with tired players. USA though are an abhorrent team for being in semifinals. Is it their B team or something?

arsedoc md wrote:

giving a pass to the euros. nonsense tourney with tired players. USA though are an abhorrent team for being in semifinals. Is it their B team or something?

They've been shackled by 2 suspensions to 2 key players. Klinsmann hasn't rotated the team either by starting almost the same 11 every game until this game (and they played the last game vs. Ecuador 40 minutes with 10 men). Tired legs doesn't excuse poor play though, especially from the "experienced" Michael Bradley. He's given the ball countless times over and over again, which is the result when you play in the MLS vs. Serie A. Mistakes don't get punished due to the lower quality of players. 

wow. what nonsense was that. i swear I remember seeing a much better USA team before.

Mexico feeling a little bit better tonight

It's really not about the USA. Argies has been thrashing every team for fun and even if you give them Germany tonight it's no difference.

mdgoonah41 wrote:

messi is the greatest player to ever play the sport, and possibly the greatest to ever play any sport. its almost absurd, to be totally honest

Ali, Jordan, Messi, Federer, Bolt.

In that order.

Messi's free kicks have just reached god tier. Amazing how he keeps reinventing his game, I bet he's going to finish his career as a world class wingback at this rate

When Messi retires and someone makes a compilation of all his goals, it's going to be the most orgasmic thing ever created.

I believe that Messi now tops Argentina's goal scoring and assist charts?

If only he played well for the national team.

Yup, he tops everything.

Better goals/game ratio than CR.

He's the best ever, hands down. He's better than everyone else in every single facet of the (attacking) game, it's just insane.

Anyone see Chile's arse err kicking of Mexico?
Alexis was brilliant.

Great free kick and all, but I really think the goalkeeper should save that.
My view on this is pretty much that the goalkeeper needs to trust his wall all the time. Don't ever do the baby steps towards the wall gamble! If a player curls the ball perfectly over the wall and the goalkeeper can't get there then, fair enough, hold your hands up and congratulate the free kick taker for a perfectly executed piece of skill. However, this shot is at most a meter to the left of the goalkeeper, in his corner, and far from a rocket. Any goalkeeper worth his salt needs to save that IMO. I'd certainly have it down as a Cech error if he conceded that.

He hit it right in the top corner. Not that easy to save it, even if it came at his side.

00:18 GK moves to the left, has a decent jump and stretches his left hand, just can't get to it due to the perfect precision.

#Messi'd.

Biggus wrote:

Anyone see Chile's arse err kicking of Mexico?
Alexis was brilliant.

Yep, previous page.

Chile and Argentina the stand out teams of the tournament. But we knew that last year anyway

Rex wrote:

Great free kick and all, but I really think the goalkeeper should save that.
My view on this is pretty much that the goalkeeper needs to trust his wall all the time. Don't ever do the baby steps towards the wall gamble! If a player curls the ball perfectly over the wall and the goalkeeper can't get there then, fair enough, hold your hands up and congratulate the free kick taker for a perfectly executed piece of skill. However, this shot is at most a meter to the left of the goalkeeper, in his corner, and far from a rocket. Any goalkeeper worth his salt needs to save that IMO. I'd certainly have it down as a Cech error if he conceded that.

After watching the replay, I wouldn't put it down as an error. Sure, a top keeper would be expected to save that but the combination of accuracy, surprise and power made it extremely hard.

Too often I don't think outfield players help their goalkeeper enough. It looks to me as if the goalkeeper doesn't see the ball until quite late. Blocking the view of the goalkeeper is of course sound tactics from the attacking team, but I can't for the life of me understand why the defending team let it happen as often as they do. On a corner of a cross defenders get away with murder almost all the time to get an advantage through blocking, holding, pulling and the like. Either goalkeepers don't communicate well enough that their vision is blocked, or outfield players aren't doing their jobs. Clearing opponents out of the way when the ball isn't even in play is no way all that hard, and I bet a majority of refs will totally let it go.

Now, if the goalkeeper sees the ball all the way and still can't make a save less than a meter to the side of him - yeah, that's a goalkeeping error for me. I don't care really that the ball is in the top corner in this instance either, because it wasn't a rocket shot. There is just no way, for me, that you should be able to beat the goalkeeper from that distance with a shot which is that close to him.

Rex wrote:

Now, if the goalkeeper sees the ball all the way and still can't make a save less than a meter to the side of him - yeah, that's a goalkeeping error for me. I don't care really that the ball is in the top corner in this instance either, because it wasn't a rocket shot. There is just no way, for me, that you should be able to beat the goalkeeper from that distance with a shot which is that close to him.

I'm not entirely sure I buy that, it's a good hit and literally skims the underside of the bar. Even for a 6 ft 4 keeper, it's not easy to save them. That's literally the only area that a goalkeeper would struggle to save a free kick like that one and Messi hit it. That's why it's a brilliant free kick.

Bear in mind for a left footed player to go for that corner is also pretty rare, hence the positioning of the keeper.

Mirth wrote:
Rex wrote:

Great free kick and all, but I really think the goalkeeper should save that.
My view on this is pretty much that the goalkeeper needs to trust his wall all the time. Don't ever do the baby steps towards the wall gamble! If a player curls the ball perfectly over the wall and the goalkeeper can't get there then, fair enough, hold your hands up and congratulate the free kick taker for a perfectly executed piece of skill. However, this shot is at most a meter to the left of the goalkeeper, in his corner, and far from a rocket. Any goalkeeper worth his salt needs to save that IMO. I'd certainly have it down as a Cech error if he conceded that.

After watching the replay, I wouldn't put it down as an error.

oh my god.

Beckham used to hit them like that quite often iirc. Also, I don't want to take anything away from Messi here; it is no doubt an amazingly well hit free kick. I agree that it is the most difficult spot for a goalkeeper to reach, but the goalkeeper doesn't start from the middle of the goal here, and the shot is hit from a significant distance.

Savz wrote:
Mirth wrote:

After watching the replay, I wouldn't put it down as an error.

oh my god.

Yes?

In my opinion that is a perfect freekick. If you insist on shooting to the GK's side, there's only one place you can hit where he doesn't save it, and Messi hit it.

Mirth wrote:
Savz wrote:

oh my god.

Yes?

Of course it's not an error. Goes without saying. The replay from behind the goal shows the GK does everything he's supposed to do.

Stood in the correct position, jumps at the right moment, jumps at full stretch with the correct hand leading, but just can't get to it. It's what makes the freekick as great as it is.

It's an unbelievable freekick. Absolutely audacious from Lionel.

Definitely stoppable, but it's Tim Howard (I think?), who's very old and very shit these days. Apart from that he does take a badly timed hop to his right and then can't get back.

It's a great hit from Messi, brilliant, but the ball isn't starting outside the post and curling toward the top corner, as it would be if it were a right footer from there, it's starting out to the keeper's right hand side and then curling across him toward the corner.

There's a reason you almost never see a freekick like that scored at the top level and it's not because players can't do what Messi did there - it's because a top keeper would expect to save it.

It's Brad Guzan. Who's not old but has played for Aston Villa.

Spoiling what's beautiful, looking for impurities.

Ricky1985 wrote:

There's a reason you almost never see a freekick like that scored at the top level and it's not because players can't do what Messi did there - it's because a top keeper would expect to save it.

I don't think so, Messi has scored free kicks like that against some of the best keepers in the game, think it was Courtois who he scored on at least twice like this, also Rico in the last SuperCup final I think where he converted two FKs in ten minutes. It's exactly because it's so difficult to pull off that you don't see them attempted more often and regardless, and what's more every goalie has to move towards the middle when his opponent regularly pulls off FKs like this:

You're fucked if you move and fucked if you don't basically.

Mirth wrote:

It's Brad Guzan. Who's not old but has played for Aston Villa.

That's a bit baldist of me. Still, he's just as crap as Tim Howard.

To be fair, Casillas' wall is an absolute joke in the video you've posted there. Messi didn't even have to curve it around it because it wasn't positioned far enough to block off that corner of the goal. It's also much more central than the one from last night.

I agree with Rex personally. As the keeper you set your all up as best you can, make sure you protect your side by not panicking/gambling and moving to the side the wall's protecting and if someone's good enough to whip it up and over the wall before you can react and get over then you shake their hand at the end of the match and say well done.

I don't think Cech concedes there personally. And I'm not saying that because he's necessarily the best goalkeeper out there, but because he's very tall and gets everything right in terms of his wall and his positioning.

Cech has conceded way cheaper goals recently, one of them just yesterday in Turkey's second goal.

I don't think many, if any, keepers save that free kick. It was literally as perfectly placed as possible, there was good whip on it - nothing Guzan could've done about it

Not freekicks he hasn't and that's the point I'm making.

I can't think of any free kicks that were even remotely as good that Cech saved though. Moot point if Cech's saves are against Craig Gardner and Seb Larsson instead of Messi, don't you think?