10 players that have somehow scored more free-kicks than Lionel Messi… so far

Leo Messi is a masterful free-kick taker, quite possibly the world’s finest in that area.

Over the last few years Messi has become so absurdly accurate from free-kicks that opponents are rightly terrified when he steps up to take one. He’s so good that when the ball is dead, Messi is honestly more dangerous from 25 yards than he is from 12.

To date, Messi has scored a phenomenal 41 free-kicks for club and country. That’s an absurd amount. You have to go back to 2007/08 to find a season in which Messi didn’t score a free-kick. Right now he stands head and shoulders above everyone else.

Or does he?

It may come as a surprise (though it shouldn’t, as Messi only really mastered free-kicks in late 2012, six years ago) given his current excellence and the sheer number of them he’s banged in, but Messi’s free-kick total is actually surpassed by quite a few legends of the game.

Who are these legends? How many free-kicks do they have? Read on and find out!

Cristiano Ronaldo

51 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Portugal; Sporting CP, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus

Yes, that’s right, Cristiano Ronaldo has scored more free-kicks than Messi. It may seem hard to believe because the great marksman has developed into something of a Roberto Carlos figure from free-kicks (his stance is theatrical genius) but go back just a couple of years and you’ll find the Portuguese was always capable of hammering home important free-kicks with fair regularity.

Rogerio Ceni

59 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Brazil; Sinop, Sao Paulo

If you ever want to make fun of Messi, just point out that a goalkeeper has scored more free-kicks than he has. Though you may want to leave out the parts where Ceni had a career that spanned 20+ years and never left the confines of the Brasileirao or Copa Libertadores. Even given those factors, however, Ceni’s set-piece speciality was phenomenally consistent. Did you know he once scored 21 goals in a season. 21! He’s a goalkeeper! 21 goals! It’s absolutely baffling.

Ronald Koeman

60 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Netherlands; Groningen, Ajax, PSV, Barcelona, Feyenoord

Before Leo Messi, Ronald Koeman was the free-kick king of the Camp Nou. The mighty Dutchman had an absolute cannon of a shot on him and could score from open play or set-pieces. His power-first approach has been imitated but no one has come close. His best moment in Blaugrana came when he sealed Barcelona’s first-ever European Cup win with a thunderous free-kick against Sampdoria.

Zico

62 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Brazil; Flamengo, Udinese, Kashima Antlers

Whilst English sides were dominating Europe, there was a genius in South America doing absurd things with a ball. Zico was a masterful footballer, an attacking midfielder with grace, poise and skill. He’s also the first of three Brazilian no. 10’s to appear on this list. His free-kicks were superb, and he’s even bagged one at the World Cup, scoring a superb strike against Scotland in 1982.

Diego Maradona

62 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Argentina; Argentinos Juniors, Boca Juniors, Barcelona, Napoli, Sevilla, Newell’s Old Boys

Messi’s broken most of Maradona’s records but this one may require some serious work to get past. The great man was sublime from set-pieces, able to artfully lift the ball up and over the ball with a deftness that seemed to not even require speed.

David Beckham

65 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: England; Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, Milan, PSG

Quite possibly the greatest Englishman to have ever lived, David Beckham made his living off of two things: crossing and free-kicks. His ability to bend the ball around the wall was and is so legendary they named a film after it. Whether rocking floppy curtains, a skinhead, a mohawk (or fauxhawk), the renaissance fair look or even those godawful braids, David Beckham was a master free-kick taker.

Victor Legrotaglie

66 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Argentina; Gimnasia y Esgrima, Chacarita Juniors, Atlético Argentina, Juventud Alianza, Independiente Rivadavia, Americo Tesorieri

One thing most of the names on this list have in common is people have heard about them. They may have started small but through their skill they blew up and became household names. Well, not Victor Legrotaglie. The Argentine set-piece sensation from the 60’s smashed home a stupendous 66 free-kicks, even throwing in 12 Olympic goals (scoring directly from a corner) for good measure.

Legrotaglie was understandably courted by some European heavyweights, including Real Madrid and Inter, but he turned them down, which is why you’ve probably never heard of him.

Ronaldinho

66 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Brazil; Gremio, PSG, Barcelona, Milan, Flamengo, Atlético Mineiro, Queretaro, Fluminense

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that the player who announced himself to the world by lobbing David Seaman with a free-kick from 40 yards in a World Cup quarter-final should turn out to be pretty great at them, but, well, yeah. He was. The hard-partying hard-playing rockstar Ronaldinho preceded Messi as Barcelona’s no. 10 and free-kick taker; and he could go over the wall, around it, goalies side or not, high into the top corner or even passing it low beneath the wall (a technique Messi has copied). It was under his excellence that the rhythmic clapping build-up the Camp Nou currently gives Messi was popularised.

Pelé

70 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Brazil; Santos, New York Cosmos

The third Brazilian no. 10 on this list is the best Brazilian no. 10 on this list. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Pelé has 70 free-kicks given that he regularly took free-kicks and scored about a bajillion goals so logic would dictate that several of those free-kicks rippled the back of the net. What makes Pelé’s achievement so impressive is that he scored these efforts with a heavy leather ball that took genuine strength to lift up and down at high speeds.

Juninho Pernambucano

77 free-kicks scored

Teams played for: Brazil; Sport do Recife, Vasco de Gama, Lyon, Al-Gharafa, New York Red Bulls

Juninho Pernambucano was and is the undisputed God Emperor of free-kicks. His masterful technique, which many have imitated but only sporadically replicated) saw him combine pace, power, accuracy and the kind of curve and curl that made it look like Juninho was Dr. Strange warping reality around the ball to make it move like that.

Juninho scored a colossal 77 free-kicks for club and country, a total it’s hard to see Messi even coming close to, let alone surpassing. Messi may be the G.O.A.T., but Juninho Pernambucano will stand forever as the sultan of the set-piece.

Others…

There are also a select group of beloved players that we know to have scored more than 50 free-kicks (thus surpassing Messi) but have been unable to confirm exactly how many they managed to score. This list includes Alessandro Del Piero, Shunsuke Nakamura, Sinisa Mihajlovic, Michel Platini, Pierre Van Hooijdonk and Hristo Stoichkov.

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