For me, Sinissa Mihajlovic is by far the greatest FK taker of all time. It's absurd how amazing this guy was. I think he still holds the % of shots on target from direct FK of all time.
Roberto Carlos is up there with Branco, but he was more fancy and powerful than great. Something like Adriano for example. You'll see them in the highlights, but you wouldn't trust them to score that many FK goals. Excellent, but not really amongst the greatest. From Brazilians there was Marcelinho Carioca (GOAT candidate), Zico, the crazy goalkeeper Ceni, Rivaldo and scorers like Ronaldo, Romario and Pele that were excellent at FKs. The first two barely bothered to take them though, Pele loved to shoot and score so he had a lot of attempts. And Juninho Pernambucano as mentioned, amongst the greatest ever.
From Italians, I think Roberto Baggio and Francesco Totti are the best, but you have Andrea Pirlo, Gianfranco Zola, Alessandro Del Piero, Giuseppe Signori and Enrico Chiesa that were also excellent. More recently, there was Francesco Lodi who was very good at this.
Simone Verdi is probably the best from this generation, which speaks volumes about its quality, but there's now Stefano Sensi that's pretty good and imo Lorenzo Insigne should try and improve there as he could have been up there.
I rate Totti above Pirlo, even if Pirlo probably scored more. One of the reasons is that Pirlo was the main hitter for Milan and Juventus for the vast majority of his time there, whilst Totti had to share the load with other excellent FK takers such as Assuncao (immense), Pjanic (2nd best in Serie A ever imo behind Sinissa), Kolarov, Paulo Sergio iirc, Nakata, Di Biagio, Batistuta... It's been a lot of people actually
Whereas even with Ronaldinho, who's one of the best in terms of scoring FKs, Pirlo was the Milan main taker. It's a tight one, but I cannot rate anyone ahead of Baggio here, while Totti had imo a better shot, while Pirlo had a better swerve on the ball. Totti and also Baggio, gave the vibe of an unsaveable FK more often than not, whereas Pirlo tricked the goalkeeper a lot and 'played' with their positioning. Testament of great awareness and skill, but imo more of his FKs could have been saved than from the other two, which plays a part in my book on how you rate a FK taker.
Pirlo has the numbers but I'm pretty sure he had a lot more tries also, but I also got vibes from Totti thinking that "there's no way he can score from there" whereas with Pirlo most of his FK goals were from a range that a great taker would have hit the target for sure. I do rate him very high, but not as #1. Also, Totti had a lot of attempts that were after a lay off, so they don't count as direct FK.
So if I had to rate Italians, from the mid 80s and on (coz you have to include Mario Corso, there's Sandro Mazzola, Gianni Rivera, Giancarlo Antognoni etc):
1) Roberto Baggio
2) Francesco Totti
3) Andrea Pirlo
4) Gianfranco Zola
5) Alessandro Del Piero
In the same timeframe, in Serie A:
1) Sinissa Mihajlovic
2) Miralem Pjanic
3) Diego Maradona
4) Michel Platini
5) Alvaro Recoba
Roberto Baggio possibly 6th, but I think that's my top 5. [We also had a few great FK takers that didn't stick around much, such as Mendieta, Paulo Sousa among others]
Nothing wrong with considering Pirlo as the greatest of the millennium thus far of course, he belongs in the conversation, but I think Juninho takes the cake there and I do feel like the cunt Pjanic was a bigger threat. I also think that Pirlo, apart from having the numbers, had a smooth style, made it seem effortless, which enhances his reputation.
From defenders, it's Sinissa, though he started as a winger or something. There's Ronald Koeman. If they had more attempts, guys like Chivu and Materazzi could have been considered great, too. I guess you could include Rogerio Ceni and Chilavert here as they're goalkeepers. Roberto Carlos and Branco, definitely. There was this Italian right back in Serie A that I forgot his name that was rather good at FKs as well.
There was this guy, Victor Antonio Legrottaglie, playing in Argentina. We had signed him but we never completed the transfer, not sure if it was us or him just not wanting to jump over to Europe. These things happened a lot until the mid 90s all over Europe actually, so it's not a big deal. So this guy is one of the best FK scorers of all time.
The issue with Lionel Messi is that he doesn't do himself justice. It took him very long to start taking these FKs (they had Ronaldinho, Xavi and Deco who were all great) and he was excellent at it. Alvaro Recoba on the other hand was hitting direct FKs and even direct corner kicks from 17 years old. He'd be on course to be the greatest ever at FKs if he was consistently taking them from 19 and on, unless it took him a while to excel, but I don't remember him taking them.
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Can't go wrong with either, or Pirlo that you mentioned above.
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Now I need to add this
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10 years of FIF
Nostradamus
Most Passionate Member
I stopped reading frmo there
