Roberto Carlos vs France

The free kick of the century, Banana free kick, The Missile… The number of nicknames found on the internet to qualify this @oficialrc3 free kick are really not lacking and it’s normal: it’s probably THE most WTF of history.

26 years after this Tournoi De France, organized as a sort of rehearsal for the 1998 World Cup, and where France and Brazil face each other (already!), the feeling of astonishment is the same when we see the sequence of the goal in slow motion. We first see Roberto Carlos calmly place the ball 35 meters from the goal, (for my Frenchies, we hear Jean Michel Larqué’s TF1 comments almost guessing from the gesture what is going to happen), take a huuuge step back, which places him almost at the central circle, begin his run-up with his characteristic small steps and strike the ball with the outside of the foot with a dull noise. Amazing.

The cannonball, clocked at 137km/h (my man is crazy), moved a meter from Barthez’s cage before returning, in a “Bezier curve” effect, shattering his nets.

We might think it was a stroke of luck but when we see the number of Free Kicks and long-range shots that RC3 has scored in his career we understand that it was completely premeditated.

What a genius.