Thierry Henry recently shed light on his free-kick technique, setting it apart from Cristiano Ronaldo's signature move.
With 175 goals under his belt, Henry remains a prominent figure in the Premier League's history books. Among his remarkable feats is scoring 12 goals directly from free-kicks, placing him among the league's top five all-time scorers from set-pieces.
While Henry shares this record with Cristiano Ronaldo, their approaches to free-kicks couldn't be more distinct. Henry's preferred method involved curling the ball, a technique that contrasted sharply with Ronaldo's famous 'knuckleball' style.
In a recent analysis segment on CBS Sports, Henry revealed why he never adopted Ronaldo's technique.
"My ritual was always doing the same thing, my shoulders were always facing the corner flag," he said. "You take your mark, always - then one, two and re-adjust. Breathe, look, Robert [Pires] would make the run."
"If I was close, I would try to lift it and jump on my standing leg, if I was further out I would step in."
Henry added: "It’s practice, your body will tell you what works or not. Some people didn’t believe in that. I remember [Pierre] van Hooijdonk used to be able to hit it with his laces over the ball, running straight to the ball. If I did that, I would do my cruciate."
"That leg is naturally open for me so I knew I had to curl it. When you’re close to the goal, you just need to get past the wall, you don’t need to hit it that hard. You need to work on your technique, your ritual, breathe. Once you have it and you repeat, you will have it."
