X A V I Posted April 9 Posted April 9 Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice's two goals from free-kicks in the Champions League against Real Madrid provided a simple reminder. There are not many better sights in football than watching a dead ball fly into the back of the net from a long distance. Rice had never scored from a direct free-kick until Tuesday, when his two moments of brilliance helped Arsenal to a 3-0 victory in the first leg of the quarter-final at Emirates Stadium. The first was curled around the wall and past goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois to put Arsenal ahead after 58 minutes, before Rice sent the ball bending into the top right-hand corner again 12 minutes later. According to the stats, the chances of Rice scoring one of those goals were slim, never mind both. Former West Ham and England goalkeeper Rob Green said "both were impossible to save". But which one was better? What were the walls doing? And why are fewer free-kicks scored in football now? Which one was better? Via Opta's expected goals (xG) model, Rice's first free-kick had an xG of 0.037 (3.7%) and his second an xG of 0.063 (6.3%). The probability of scoring both comes in at a combined total of 0.23%. Or put in layman's terms, a one-in-435 chance. But which one was better? BBC pundit Green, who was at the Emirates for CBS, said it was the second. "There is a series of things that happen. First of all, it is Courtois in goal," said Green. "Secondly, when someone shoots at what is called 'the goalkeeper's side' (the part of the goal not covered by the wall) like Rice did and they score, then people go 'oh, it's the goalkeeper's side'. "Well, this time Rice does that against the best goalkeeper in the world, and at no point has anyone mentioned that Courtois should get anywhere near it. "It is hard to think of how a right-footed player could have placed it any better, and with any more power than that. It was the definition of a perfect free-kick. "My old goalkeeper coach at West Ham, Ludek Miklosko, used to call that top corner of the goal next to the stanchion 'the spiders' web'. When I worked on an England game with John Murray for BBC Radio 5 Live last month, he said that in Brazil they call it 'where the owls sleep'. Every country has a different saying for it - we know it as 'top bins'." https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/ckg22y9rz96o Quote
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