Bicycle kicks, dipping volleys, diving headers, 30-yard thunderbolts – there are plenty of ways to score spectacular goals, even bundling the ball in with your backside – beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder.
For all the wondrous how-on-earth-did-they-do-that? volleys of a Marco van Basten or a Zinedine Zidane; for all the mazy dribbles that leaves half the opposition chasing Lionel Messi’s shadow before he calmly lobs the ball over the goalkeeper with his eyes shut; for all the Steven Gerrard pile drivers that threaten to rip right through the net, for me, none are more glorious than seeing a player score direct from a free kick.
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Visions of Paul Gascoigne hitting a ball that is still rising into David Seaman’s top corner for Tottenham Hotspur in the 1991 FA Cup semi-final, or Roberto Carlos’s audacious, outside of the left-foot effort against France in Le Tournoi in 1997, are still vivid.
And we were treated to two beauties in this weekend’s FA Cup action: a feat of engineering from Dimitri Payet and a howitzer from Eden Hazard.
Payet's effort to give West Ham United a 2-1 lead in their fifth-round encounter against Blackburn Rovers, was the perfect range for the Frenchman: 25 yards from goal, slightly left of centre, and with a generous goalkeeper offering him more than half of his goal to aim for.
But Payet still had to execute, to hit the ball with enough height to clear a jumping wall 10 yards away, enough curl to keep going away from the keeper and enough speed so that he would be unable to make up the ground. He scored full marks on all three.
Hazard's free kick that put Chelsea 4-1 up against Manchester City was more blood and thunder but with no less precision than Payet's.
Maybe five yards closer to goal than Payet, Hazard’s task was arguably even harder, with less of an angle to work with. City goalkeeper Willy Caballero, who it could be argued was at fault for most of City’s goals, was definitely at fault for this one too, but that is not to take anything away from the skill and guile required by Hazard to score it.
Caballero ordered his wall to protect the right side of his goal while he covered the left side. Standard stuff, the kind you see in every match anywhere in the world. And while the Argentine may well have been happy with his set-up, he failed to react to Hazard ordering three of his Chelsea teammates to line up on the end of the wall, the side Caballero had covered, essentially telegraphing to all at Stamford Bridge where he intended to guide the ball.
As Hazard began his short run up, the trio parted right on cue as the Belgian blasted the ball with thunderous pace and perfect precision into Caballero’s left-hand corner. If the goalkeeper had just held his position, instead of taking a step to his right, you know, the side that wall of City players was protecting, he would have made a comfortable save.
Hazard’s strike was one of eight Chelsea have hit direct from free kicks this season, more than any other team in Europe’s top five leagues.
All the more, it was executed by a player other than Willian, the West London club’s set-piece specialist who has scored some stunning goals from a dead-ball situation than any other this season. He may have some competition on his hands now.
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