or just dumb altogether. Have a look at the following thread for his assessment of Pirlo: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=278574&page=2
From reading this thread and the other, what do you have against Pirlo? You seem to have described him in the other thread as some kind of non-entity. Have you ever seen him play for AC Milan, because I'll tell you, he is an integral part of our team. He also plays a similar role for the NT. Players like Pirlo may seem useless (to the ignorant) but when played properly he is quite effective. For us, he serves to help the defense and he is the focal point of many an attack. His passes literally have shredded opposing teams defenses and helped provide the necessary catalyst for Shevchenko, and the rest of our strikers. He is a valuable player, I don't know where I would rate him in a world class scale, but he is one of Italy's better talents right now. That said, Juninho is the better free kick taker, as that is what this thread is about. Pirlo is starting to hit very good form though, and seems to be getting extremely good. At 25, he has plenty of time to perfect things.
Pirlo is a great set piece man. No doubt. As is Juninho Pernambucano. Some of the people on here blind if they knock on Pirlo, but whatever. I think Juninho is a better goal-scorer. That's his job, since he's an AM. Pirlo is just a great playmaker. his job isn't to score. Both players have their qualities, and like I said, on any team, they would both be feared when taking those free kicks.
Djimi Traore has a champions league title. Back to the comparrison, id say juninho is the best in the world at the minute, pirlo not far behind in second.
I think we should all ignore levineto. He is just a racist who just doesn't know a lot or knows nothing at all about Italy.
Gentlemen: I have some numbers. Pirlo's goals from free-kicks Brescia: 2 Reggina: 3 AC Milan: 7 Champions League, AC Milan: 3 Azzurri: 3 That's 18 free-kick goals in his professional career; 12 in Serie A. Given that Pirlo is only 26, these numbers are quite impressive. I will look for Juninho's numbers soon. Cheers. Source: andreapirlo.com
If he played more (which I'm sure Inter fans would be aghast at), Sinisa Mihajlovic might still be considered the best FK taker in the world. As impressive as Pirlo's 18 career goals off set pieces are, Mihajlovic once had more than 10 in one SerieA season.
I think Del Piero actually scored a bunch as well.. I remember him scoring more then 10 one season and also doing a freekick hattrick in one game think it was 96? And he is still good for about 5 or 6 each season..; So he must be well over 50 by now
That's because they were against Scotland. So far, he has scored at least two beauties, one against Ascoli and another against Rapid Vienna. Both are free-kicks that I'd want to see time and time again.
Sinisa Mihajlovic holds the all-time record for most free kicks ever scored in the Serie A, and it's around 40.
He have scored 36 goals in Serie A, some of them are penalties. So it can't be anything near 40. But he does hold the all-time record, it's 27 , followed by Zola's 19, and then Baggio and Maradona's 14. Mihajlovic WAS the best freekick taker, no doubt. He had a hat trick against Samp in 98/99, can't recall anyone doing the same. Back to the main man of this topic, Pirlo. He has by far scored 11 freekicks in Serie A, very impressive at the age of 26. btw, he also scored 4 for U21 I still remember two of them, one beat France (Henry and Trez in team) in play-off and the other gave Italy their 4th U21 title. I kinda believe you may mistake penalties for freekicks... Here is the statistic of the past 4 seasons. This season Pirlo has 4 and Volpi has 2 till now, not very sure though. I reckon Serie A is the most difficult league for feekick takers as they are famous for top GKs and defenders.
pirlo is a great freekick taker and scores a lot of goals from dead ball situations but junniniho pernambucano is the no.1 at the moment.
Where did you get those stats, Kleenex? They look familiar, perhaps, because I recall seeing the Gazzetta dello Sport running a graphic on this issue. Looks like Pirlo is destined to surpass Baggio, Zola, Maradona, and Platini. It will be impressive if he can over-take Sinisa, but he's still young.
pirlo has more range on his shot then Baggio had. he almost never scored free kicks from more then 20+ meters. same with Maradona and Platini.
Good point. Not sure if he has the range Mihajlovic had, though. He would score diagonal kicks from 30-35 meters. I'm surprised Baggio had 14. I tought I saw him score a lot more . Didn't he score like 3 olympic goals as well? Or am I crazy? Sempre, it would be great if you can find Juninho's stats. I've been trying to find them, as well as the ones for Beckham and Rogerio Ceni. If anyone out there has a link, please share. Rep for Kleenex on the stats.
Well, acording to wikpedia Juninho has scored 23 goals for Lyon in free kicks. I know that he has scored 3 free kicks for Brazil NT. And that he has scored 24 goals for Vasco, but I don´t how many of them were on free kicks. Also no idea about his status with his former team Sport.