Gareth Bale scored a beautiful free-kick goal in Real Madrid’s 3-0 win over Espanyol and has a better set-piece average conversion rate than teammate Cristiano Ronaldo.
Bale’s superb strike means the Welshman has only scored one free-kick goal less than Ronaldo since both players are teammates.
While Ronaldo has scored five free-kicks since the beginning of last season (but all in 2013/14), Bale sits now on four direct strikes.
The 2-0 against Espanyol was Real’s first direct free-kick goal this season and it also means that the 25-year-old has a better free-kick conversation rate than the Portuguese.
According to AS, using statistics expert Mr Chip, Bale scores a free-kick goal in every 9.5 attempts, while Ronaldo only hits the back of the net in every 15.6 free-kicks.
The Spanish paper report Bale’s stats are even better than the one of Juventus’s set-piece expert Andrea Pirlo (10.5 free-kicks per goal) and Lionel Messi (14.1 free-kicks per goal).
Following a heated free-kick debate last season, Ronaldo ceded duties to Bale when ever a free-kick has been awarded on the right side of the pitch, while he will still cover the opposite side.
However, Ronaldo’s last free-kick goal came against Bayern Munich in last season’s Champions League semi-final and the Portuguese is yet to score from a free-kick this season.
0 comments:
Post a Comment