Remember Brazil’s Roberto Carlos taking a free kick from 115ft against France in 1997 which was seemingly heading for the corner flag but then curved like a banana to land in the net? No. Never mind, there is a video you can watch.
The stunning free kick was dismissed as a fluke but now, a research team has applied the laws of physics to prove that, in fact, the shot was no fluke at all.
Using tiny plastic balls and a slingshot (don’t remember those in the match), the researchers have gone beyond the known Magnus effect to discover fresh insight into spinning balls that are shot over a distance equivalent to Carlos’ free kick…The Story…