We have all seen free kicks where we have said “what is he trying to do scoring from that far out”?
Most often it all goes terribly wrong and the player who was taking the shot is left looking skywards as the rest of his team look on thinking “well that was a waste of time.”
This was not the case however during Saturdays Bundesliga match between last season’s runners up Borussia Dortmund and struggling Hamburg who were winning 2-0 when they were awarded a free-kick in the dying minutes of the first-half just two yards from the centre circle.
Up steps Gunners target Turkish international midfielder Hakan Calhanoglu who strikes the ball with such venom that you would have been forgiven to think that it had come off the boot of Cristiano Ronaldo or Gareth Bale as the ball turns right and then left heading towards goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller who could never say that he did not see it coming as he had an unobstructed view of the ball its entire flight, yet the German shot stopper was helpless as the ball went flying into the back of the net to give Hamburg a 3-0 lead which by the way was the final score.
The 20-year-old calls this shot his “knuckleball” a term often used in baseball where a pitcher is able to make the ball move erratically in the air.
Have a look at the video of this amazing goal and then the second video below it where Real Madrid’s Gareth bale explains how he manages to get the ball to move like this.
