I know Beckham uses the inside of his foot instead of the infront. And I've seen the slow motion of his free kicks so many times, but I still can't figure out the magic. My guess is that he approaches the ball from the infront (kinda toe) and lets the ball slide on the inside of his foot. That gives the ball spin and he swings through toward the target. And of course the speed (running towards the ball) is the key too. So does anyone have any correction or suggestions? What's your analysis?
Hes crazy. the only way to figure it out is practicing hundreds of hours like he does. There is no real technique, just whatever you can do you with your foot.
Yea good ole' Becks has been trying to master his bends since he was not even in double digit age!!! Your best bet is to just go out against a wall or really nice friend and good kick some balls. It helps I find if you come to it at an angle. Also if your having trouble as to where to kick it its good if you put the logo on the ball to the side you know you have to kick it and am for it. Like if you want to bend it to the right put the logo off to the left and strike it there. Turn your leg so it like crosses over your body. Or while you strike it just turn your angle so your foot does the bending not leg.
it took me six months to get even the height and maybe the speed becks gets on his free kicks. but about the bend,, its just a little. you will need an incredible amount of practice to get the bend in the ball like he does.
There have been several posts discussing this in detail - I suggest you find them. It's quite easy to do a similar dipping free kick only much slower so that gravity will start to dip the ball, the problem here is the goalie has time to get to it. But to make your kick untouchable you need to hit it fast and make the downspin dip it. That's what's gonna take endless practice.
I got to where I could do it decently for a while, and I did it by trying to imitate what I see the best free kick takers do - the ones that use the inside of their foot anyways. If you notice they sort of do a sweeping motion in a circle instead of following directly through. That's what adds the spin. The dip is just hard. I have no idea how I did it. I didn't do it anywhere near as good as Beckham or Zidane obviously, but it was not bad. I don't know what I did, it was all muscle memory. Then I didn't play for a few days because I had so much school assignments and I forgot how.
Can you guys really hit it at the speed or anything like beckham? You guys should really be playing some pro or something. But as for the question, like everyone else says, just practice will get you as far as anything. thanks
R. Carlos can also get an amazing amount of spin on the ball. The trick to getting alot of spin on the ball is easy. You need to have a good pace running to the ball, the faster you are going, the more momentum your kicking leg will have when you follow through. Hit the ball on its farthest side with the area between your instep and your big toe. Aim a little right or left of the spot you hope to hit and let the swerve do the rest. If you lean your upper torso back a little, you will get more lift on the ball, the farther back you bend, the more lift you will have. I only reccommend this if you are 25-30 yards away, any closer than that, just run straight onto the ball, and hit it between the top of your foot and your ankle if you want it to dip. Dont worry about spin on close shots, aim to the opposite side of the keeper, and just make sure you get it up over the wall, let the dip do the rest.
Thanks to all of you who have replied. Yeah, it just takes lots of practicing and developing it by myself. But it's just so amazingly insane how Beckham hits it, ya know. Thanks, =)
i get quite a bit of bend on my free kicks, but nowhere near the pace or low trajectory he gets - the amazing thing about his FKs isnt the bend out of context; its the amount of bend in the short flight and his control over it - best i can tell he kinda whips his instep around the ball might i suggest hanging out with keira knightley?
the best way i've found to do it is by approaching from alomost total 90* from the ball and putting an intense inside curve on it. for the added height plant your foot far backl and lean away from the ball. And practice a whole lot.
yeah its insane how he can get so much dippage from only 20 yards out. Its a lot easier from 30 because when you curve it naturally after a while the ball begins to dip. another way to get that (I think I saw Ronaldinho do it this way), approach the ball from the side....(make your run to the ball a 90 degree angle), and kick it with the inside of your foot. BUT, when you kick it, have your heel almost touching the ground and your toe pointing up. this will put a fair amount of velocity and topspin on the ball. The higher from the ground ur toe is pointed the better the topspin. Id suiggest to get the ball right over the wall, dont lean back when kicking, stay almost on top of the ball, approach at a good speed, your toe should be about 40degrees off the ground (your foot and the ground should make a 40 degree angle with your heel being the vertex). If you hit it right it should make it right over a wall and start to dip then. Id say use this from about 25 yards out. Its VERY difficult to use Beckham's style where the ball literally can be going straight, but dip severly. so youll just have to put surve on yours so it dips like a curveball in baseball.
Yeah, that's my thing. I and two other guys I know, one of whom doesn't even play soccer, can kick it so it bends like it's going in a half circle after the wall, but to bend it where it is going straight and snaps the other way and down at the last second is really something special.
Oh well dont remember who claimed it but maybe noone, can't find it now. But if anyone can, I'll be happy to cheer for you in WC 06 for USA 8) Anyways, good luck on it all. thanks
i cant kick the ball as fast as beckham can but its close, i've bin practicing since september minus december and january, first you might be frustrated because there will seriusly be no results, but as you keep playing and practicing you WILL get better at free kicks. i dont know how long you guys have been playing but i started to PLAY only last year. Looking forward to astonish my coach with my free kick ability this fall. :h
Haha, yeah well I respect Roberto Carlos the best out of all but I really like the team Manchester United, so ya know.
How fast does beckham kick it? How can you really tell if you are kicking it as fast as beckham? I have no idea how fast my kicks are I kinda wanna figure out. I think i kick a lot slower than most people even though i have pretty good technique, just not enough knee snap i guess. When beckham takes his free kicks does he really snap at the knee or is it more of a leg motion. I get the ball to bend and dip easily, but not like go a certain distance then dip, I don't really see how to do this unless I kick it a bit slower. I can just change the trajectory but then it is predictable. Beckham is insane.
i agree that striking the ball and getting the spin and placment of Becks is difficult but all that you have to do is pick a corner of the goal and make your run in the general direction make sure the inside of your foot is where you want the ball to start and hit the outside of the ball in a sort of upward motion and you should get the placement and spin nearly identical to the type that Becks put on it.
watching him on tv you can actually figure out the speed,, in his profile on some website, it said his fastest shot was clocked at 99.5 mph or something. for a faster kick, place your non-kicking foot a bit more further than the ball as you strike it. i've seen veron's free kicks, ithink he does snap his knees a bit more than beckham if he does do that.
I can actually answer that. He's Greece free kick was about 27 meters/s or 97 kmph - I figured this out using video editing software (the ball was 27 meters out and it took exactly 1 second to reach the goal) . This is probably the key to his success. I bet most of the amateurs who think they can bend it like beckham can achieve speeds of maybe 60% of that. To my knowledge the fastest ever kick is somehting like 120 kmph. BTW I also checked out a Veron free kick from a similar position and it also took almost exactly 1 second to travel to the goal. So I'd think it's fair to say we're dealing with speeds of ca. 100 kmph.
Yeah, they kick it extremely fast. It's so fast that the goalie sees it coming at them and doesn't have time to react when it bends. My kicks can get by high school and rec league keepers, but I doubt they could beat the type of keeper these guys face. The key is getting the speed and the bend.
speeds over 100 mph? there arent too many players in the world that can top 100 mph, one that i can think of is Roberto Carlos, Beckham might get close to that, but no way are his free kicks that fast, the amount of curl that he puts on his kicks wouldnt be synonymous with a high rate of speed.
hmmm...I'm kind of curious, i almost want to clock my shot to figure out. How much does one of those radar gun things cost? I'm guessing my shot is like half that speed, not even. Other then planting farther away how do you shoot harder? I think that i especcialy have to work on getting my knee to snap quickly and carry my body through the ball, anyone got any tips about this sort of thing?