Roberto Baggio's Top 5 Free Kicks

‘’He took free kicks like no other.’’ Andrea Pirlo remarked. ‘’I just used to stand there in training and study him for days. I think I learned something in the end.’’

Pirlo was of course talking about Roberto Baggio, one of the bearded geniuses' idols. It can be easy to overlook just how good The Divine Ponytail was at set pieces, given how brilliant he was at more or less everything else on a football pitch.

He's among the best free kick specialists in Serie A history, in the top five surrounded by illustrious names (Zola, Del Piero, Pirlo and Mihajlovic are the other four) - and he inspired two out of the four to boot. That speaks volumes.

I’ve given myself the arduous task of trying to whittle down Baggio’s top five free kicks from all competitions. As someone who has most of his goals imprinted to memory as an ardent lover of the man from Caldogno, there were some goals I’d somehow forgotten about and it was a joy just to sit back on YouTube and marvel at his genius (as if anyone needs an excuse anyways).

The difficult part was deciding which ones to leave out, so I took into consideration things like importance of the goal, who the opponents were and significance of the game.

So enough waffling from me and lets all marvel together at the ponytailed genius. If you felt there were certain goals I left off the list I would like to hear suggestions.

5. Bologna vs Inter, Serie A 1997/98, 2-4

Having left Milan in the summer of 1997, seemingly heading for Parma only for a young Carlo Ancelotti to put the brakes on the move (a decision he would later regret), Baggio found himself signing for Bologna in order to win back a place with the Azzurri ahead of France ’98. He had scored a penalty on his debut in a 4-2 away defeat to Atalanta and in week two of the season Bologna and Baggio where at home to Inter, but this wasn’t any old Inter side, this was Ronaldo’s Inter.

The game was billed as Baggio vs Ronaldo; the meeting of old and new, Ronaldo had usurped Baggio as the best player in the world at the ripe age of 21. ‘’They all exaggerated this match as a challenge - me vs Ronaldo.’’ He said, ‘’but this will be exclusively Bologna vs Inter.’’

On a rainy day at the Stadio Dall’Ara, Inter raced into the lead from a Fabio Galante header and added another goal from Maurizio Ganz. Then with one minute before half time, Bologna won a free kick just outside the Inter box. Baggio curled the ball up and across the wall with such velocity that goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca had no chance of saving it, the ball screaming into his top right hand corner.

Baggio would net another goal; this time from a penalty, before Ronaldo added a sublime third goal for the Neazzurri and finally Youri Djorkaeff scored a sumptuous chip to win a pulsating game for Gigi Simoni’s side.

This game was the beginning of Baggio’s rebirth and he would go on to score a further 19 goals for Bologna as he did reach his target of making the squad for France ’98. The following season he would sign for Inter, linking up with II Fenomeno and Djorkaeff.

4. Fiorentina vs Brescia, Serie A 2000/01, 2-2

Baggio’s first season at Brescia was a mixed affair, he joined the newly promoted side in September 2000 after leaving Inter. Baggio’s kryptonite, injuries, forced him to miss a chunk of the 2000/01 season and by February he still hadn’t scored a goal for the Little Swallows.

He made his return to the pitch in this game against old club Fiorentina (the one club he truly loved) and finally broke his duck in the fourth minute with arguably the scrappiest goal of his entire career. If there was ever a goal that was unbefitting for a man with Baggio’s quality, this was it.

La Viola had turned the game around with strikes from Nuno Gomes and Enrico Chiesa, then the away side got a free kick in the 67^th minute on the left hand side of the Fiorentina box. As Baggio stepped up, the decibel level sharply rose as whistles from the home supporters increased. Baggio remonstrated with the referee that the wall wasn’t back far enough before he casually strolled back to the ball.

He delightfully curled the ball over the wall and it crashed violently off the crossbar and down and up into the roof of Francesco Toldo’s net. Baggio refused to celebrate (in an era before everyone and their dog refused to celebrate against former clubs) and the game ended in a draw.

Brescia’s target for the season was to avoid relegation yet confounded critics to finish 8^th in Serie A, gaining entry into the Intertoto Cup. Baggio would start scoring with more regularity and would finish the season on 10 goals.

3. Inter vs Parma, 1999/00 Champions League Play Off, 3-1

Both sides had finished the 1999/00 season equal on 58 points and thus a play off was needed to determine who would qualify for the final Champions League spot. Nine days after the end of the season, May 23rd 2000, Parma and Inter met at the Stadio Bentegodi in Verona in a one off match.

Baggio had endured one of the worst seasons of his career under Marcello Lippi, who had now become his sworn enemy, more so than his long-traditional rival, Arrigo Sacchi. Lippi had arrived at Inter in the summer of 1999 and had asked Baggio to essentially be a spy for him in the Inter locker room. Baggio, being a players’ player, instantly baulked at the demands from his new manager and that set the tone for the course of the season, Baggio always on the bench or in the stands but rarely on the pitch.

As the season neared its end, Ronaldo suffered a major injury against Lazio in the Coppa Italia and with Alvaro Recoba being, well, Alvaro Recoba and Ivan Zamarano reduced to the role of impact sub, Lippi had no choice but to start Baggio in this crucial match.

Lippi was told by Massimo Moratti that if he lost this match he would be sacked. It was all or nothing for the former Juventus manager.

In the 36^th minute Lilian Thuram hacked down Benoit Cauet down on the left hand side of the Parma half, just outside the penalty area. The angle was very tight and most imagined that Baggio would cross the ball into the box.

But the Divine One had different ideas, instead of crossing it he bent the ball over the wall and past Gigi Buffon, who like the rest of us, probably expected a cross, into his top left hand corner. A sublime piece of ingenuity.

Baggio would score another superb goal late in the game, a volley from outside the box, to confirm Inter’s place in the preliminary rounds of the Champions League. This was his parting gift to Moratti, who Baggio always liked. Gazzetta dello Sport gave him a 10/10 rating the next day, a rarity for the paper (they have only gave out six 10/10 ratings in their existence).

It would all be for nothing however as Baggio left shortly thereafter and so would Lippi, as Inter were shockingly beat by Helsingborg in the qualifiers and with that he was gone. His reputation in tatters.

2. Milan vs Perugia, Serie A 1996/97, 3 – 0

Baggio was in his second season with the Rossoneri, his first produced a second consecutive Scudetto but he wasn’t the key player everyone had hoped. Fabio Capello shoehorned him into his system rather than build around him and it always seemed that Don Fabio didn’t quite know how best to harness Baggio’s majestic talent.

In the summer of 1996 Capello left Milan and Italy for Real Madrid and in came Oscar Tabárez, future Uruguay manager. Tabárez had previously worked wonders with Cagliari in 1994/95 and 1995/96, guiding them to a 9^th and 10^th place finish.

Baggio was in and out of the starting XI in the opening rounds of the season as Tabárez chopped and changed his formation every week. On the 4^th weekend of the season Perugia came to the San Siro but Baggio was relegated to the bench, with George Weah and Marco Simone leading the line.

Milan raced into an early lead through the Liberian and he added a second late in the second half. Baggio came on at the start of the second half for a young Massimo Ambrosini and in the 77^th minute Milan got a free kick.

The set piece was a good 25 yards from goal; Baggio took a very quick sprint and beautifully curled the ball up and over the wall into the top corner of the Perugia net. The real beauty of the goal is viewing it in with a different angle as you can appreciate the technique of the strike. There was Bend It Like Baggio long before the term was coined for David Beckham.

This strike would arguably be the highlight of Baggio’s season. Milan had a disastrous season and Tabárez would be sacked in December ’96. ‘’I feel so sorry for him.’’ Roberto remarked, ‘‘The role Tabárez made for me was perfect.’’

In a cruel twist of fate, Silvio Berlusconi brought Baggio’s adversary Arrigo Sacchi back to the club. As one can imagine, Baggio’s season didn’t get any better after that. Sensing the writing on the wall, Baggio left the club in the summer of 1997.

1. Borussia Dortmund vs Juventus, UEFA Cup Semi Final 2^nd Leg 1994/95, 1-2

The 1994/95 season was bordering on being historic for Juventus, under new coach Marcello Lippi La Vecchia Signora were competing on three fronts. They were first in the league, in the final of the Coppa Italia and now in the semi final of the UEFA Cup against regular '90s foe Borussia Dortmund.

The ponytailed one had been enduring a mixed season, injured for large portions of it and suffering from a huge World Cup hangover where he was made a scapegoat by the country for having the gall to miss a penalty in the final in which he single handedly dragged Italy to meant he wasn’t having the most stellar of seasons.

Yet as the season was nearing its end his form began to pick up again as Juve headed to Germany for the second leg of the semi final. Despite how good a young Alessandro Del Piero was performing as his understudy, if Baggio was healthy, he started.

The first leg ended a 1-1 draw, with Baggio scoring from a penalty and the second leg was expected to be a tight affair.

Sergio Porrini scored an early goal for Juve, a header from Baggio’s corner. Dortmund equalized not long after and then in the 31^st minute Juve win a free kick after Rene Tretschok hacked down Angelo Di Livio. Baggio took charge of the ball.

Throughout the course of his career he had various ways of taking free kicks, one such method was to simply take a step or two and hit the ball with his instep (goal no.4 on the list)

Another technique, one that he mostly used during his time at Juve, was to run at the ball as if he was going to hit it with his laces, yet at the last second he would bend the ball beautifully with the inside of his foot. It was this technique that he called on here.

As he hit the ball it arched majestically, travelling ferociously into Stefan Klos’s top right hand corner, the German international barely moved as the ball clipped the underside of the crossbar and into the net. It was a goal worthy of any occasion. He ran over to celebrate with Lippi, jumping on him (given everything that transpired between the two later, a very surreal image indeed). Simply an outrageously sublime goal and for me his greatest ever free kick.

Juve would go on to win the game and make it to the final where they would lose to Parma and be denied of the treble. It was to be Baggio’s last great goal for the Bianconeri as he would depart in the summer of 1995 to rivals Milan after refusing to take a wage cut and not being guaranteed first team football.

So that's Roby Baggio's best free kicks, in my humble opinion at least. Would love to know peoples opinions on any I omitted, if so you can find me on twitter!