Before Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final first leg against Real Madrid, Declan Rice had not scored a free-kick goal in 338 games of club football.
He had only taken 13 free-kick shots in eight years with West Ham United and Arsenal, and the latter club had not scored a direct free-kick goal in the Premier League since September 2021. The last time Arsenal had scored a deliberate one in the Champions League — Bukayo Saka’s cross ghosted past everyone against Paris Saint-Germain earlier this season — was in 2002!
“And today, in 12 minutes, against one of the best keepers in the world, we score two… nobody knows about football,” laughed Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta after Tuesday’s game.
That comment sums up the surreal euphoria that swept the Emirates Stadium after Rice scored two spectacular free-kick goals in the space of 12 second-half minutes during the 3-0 win over reigning European champions Madrid.
So often the engine of his team who does the unglamorous grunt work that goes unnoticed, it was a night on which Rice reminded the world how rounded and technically gifted a footballer he is.
And it was made even more special by the presence of his parents, brothers and friends. He was able to celebrate his first Champions League man of the match trophy with them, which will surely be pride of place in his dedicated memorabilia room, but by the time he had finished his media duties and gone into the changing room to receive the embrace of his team-mates — which included the injured Gabriel pleading with him to gift him his right leg — the stadium was nearly closing.
The England international midfielder is just the fifth player to have scored two free-kick goals in the same Champions League game, which is remarkable considering he has barely taken a shot from one since leaving West Ham to join Arsenal in summer 2023.
Rice assumed responsibility for taking Arsenal’s corner kicks from their left flank midway through last season and also sends in virtually all their free-kick deliveries, but captain Martin Odegaard has been their main free-kick taker from shooting positions since joining in 2021.
Arsenal’s method for assigning free-kick duties is similar to penalties in that the players on the pitch are allowed to use their feel for the game and discuss.
Rice has been keen to step up and have more opportunities to make an impact when Arsenal have won fouls around the box. He has a full-size goal in his garden at home that he uses to perfect his technique, but his personality means he tends to step back if others want to take it, or skipper Odegaard pulls rank.
Against Everton in the Premier League on Saturday, Rice gave an example of the power he can generate from dead-ball situations as he forced England colleague Jordan Pickford into a good save.
Rice could have scored two goals in the first half against Madrid, but stopped his run for what could have been a tap-in from Saka’s ball across the box and had a great header saved by Thibaut Courtois.
It was starting to feel like one of those nights in which the Belgian would prove unbeatable.
Then, in the 58th minute, Saka won a foul 28 yards (25.9m) from goal (according to UK match broadcaster Amazon). Rice had no hesitation. He paced towards the ball and whipped a shot around the outside of the four-man wall to beat Courtois.
Bartek Sylwestrzak was football’s first dedicated ball-striking coach and joined Brentford in 2014, where he spent four seasons. He now travels Europe helping individual players master the techniques of both dead-ball and open-play shooting but the most common request — including from a client who has scored a free-kick goal in this season’s Champions League — is for help with the top-spin action on a free kick.
Rice, however, opted for a whipping action to generate inside spin to arc the ball around Federico Valverde on the end of the wall. “Rice scored two good goals but technically there was nothing revolutionary in either strike,” says Sylwestrzak. “He has just hit two powerful and precise curlers.
“I appreciate Arsenal’s celebrations, as any free-kick goal is usually nice to watch and it was important given the stage of the competition, but Rice didn’t have to go over the wall, he went around it.”
Sylwestrzak is critical of Courtois’ use of the wall as he only put four men in it despite the free kick being central and having both a left-footer and right-footer standing over it. The Madrid goalkeeper also had to contend with Odegaard, just inside the penalty area, being in his line of vision.
“Whether he thought Saka was taking it or not is irrelevant, as he has to prepare for both (right or left foot),” says Sylwestrzak.
He adds: “For a goal to be curled around the wall is Sunday League level. That should never happen. Credit to Rice for exploiting that mistake, but the wall is too narrow given the distance of the shot. He has a lot of room to go around it.
“Rice deserves big credit for spotting the opportunity, and the accuracy.”
The midfielder revealed at full time that Arsenal’s set-piece coach Nico Jover was gesturing for him to cross the ball to the back post rather than shoot, but after discussing with Saka he decided against it.
“He (Jover) was telling me to cross it. When they (Real Madrid’s wall) were over a little bit, I could see the space around the outside of the wall and then I looked at the ’keeper. Originally, that’s why we lined up with three at the back (post), because we were going to cross it — like me reverse-crossing it.
“It didn’t make sense from that angle to cross the ball. I didn’t see it. They were on a high line and it would have to be such a delicate pass. I saw where the wall was and I just thought, ‘Go for it’.”
Sylwestrzak believes teams do not value scoring opportunities like this enough.
“Clubs are drawing the wrong conclusions about free kicks because they don’t appreciate how great an opportunity it is to score or how,” he says. “When the players don’t execute it, they decide that they are better crossing than shooting and that is why the number of free-kick shots in the Premier League is way down.
“I have seen the technical and athletic potential being wasted for years. Cristiano Ronaldo is one who could easily have scored 250 direct free kicks (four times as many as he has) but has never known what to do, so has been making the same technical mistakes for over 20 years.
“I recently watched Odegaard’s free kicks and despite being a technically gifted player, his shooting technique isn’t good. It is evident he doesn’t know how to produce a technically excellent shot and has been missing chances.”
Rice’s second to make it 2-0, 12 minutes later, was the showstopper. It was slightly further to the left this time and a little closer in, but he went to the goalkeeper’s side of the goal this time, something he has been practising in training.
“The second is the technically better shot,” says Sylwestrzak. “It is powerful and very accurate so, even with the goalkeeper in a great position, it would be a challenging shot.
“Normally, you have the wall protecting the near post and the goalkeeper standing nearer towards the other post, but Courtois is stood at around the middle of the goal. Arsenal have done a good job here with the false wall, which might have slowed down Courtois’ reaction. He was left with no time to shuffle across and dived too late.
“What Courtois is doing I cannot understand, as he exposed the far post. Rice has obviously looked at that and thought, ‘Why don’t I hit a powerful shot without having to worry about the wall?’.”
Rice again took the initiative.
“We were going to touch and set it — Martin was going to touch and I was going to run on to it. But (Madrid striker Kylian) Mbappe was stood a little bit too close,” he said.
“And I just thought, ‘You know what…’
“I was going to go over the wall but I changed my mind as I felt I had this keeper’s side. I practise it a lot and just went with it. I just had the confidence after the first one. I had nothing to lose — if it went over the bar, so be it.”
Rice planted his foot diagonally away from the ball, pointing towards the far corner, and his body followed. As he went to execute the shot, he moved his weight onto his standing leg and his striking motion saw him hit up on the ball with his instep.
But the crucial part is how he whipped his foot over the ball in the follow-through. There is no huge extension of the leg, it is almost like a snap-shot where brings his right leg across his body to generate the curl.
“It is by far the most dominant technique in the last 20 years,” says Sylwestrzak. “Some have tried forward spin or knuckleball, but both of these are rare.
“He hits a sharp delivery (from corners) but in indirect free kicks you don’t need to put the ball over a wall and make it come back down. A good set-piece taker may have a good inside-spin curler, but it can have limitations as in a direct free kick as the ball is not coming down as quickly. In these two goals, he didn’t need the spin, it was the power and precision.”
Rice’s head is still facing away from the goal when the ball is in the air, a sign of how exaggerated his whipping action is, a question Arsenal legend Thierry Henry, covering the match as a pundit for U.S. broadcaster CBS, asked of him post-match.
“I feel like when I practise these in training, when I look up quickly at the ball I don’t get the same consistency as when I just focus on the ball but that is one in a…” said Rice, pausing to think of what the chances of scoring could have been.
No matter the number, he knew he had smashed those odds to smithereens.
