There’s something magical about seeing a football bend and swerve its way up, down and side-to-side – seemingly unmoving in the air as it makes its way in mystical style past a dumbstruck goalkeeper.
We are of course talking about the knuckleball.
One of the most famous purveyors of this wonderful strike of course was Brazilian midfielder Juninho – bagging 44 free kick goals in his illustrious career for Lyon / Brazil, many of which being the infamous “knuckleball”.
It may interest you to know that the “knuckleball” technique was not discovered by football but in fact “the great American pastime” – baseball.
In 1908, Eddie “Knuckles” Cicotte (a pitcher for the Boston White Sox) discovered that with the correct grip he could eliminate the spin of the baseball completely, producing an erratic and impossible to hit pitch – the knuckleball was born.
Since then, we as football fans have been treated to a great many of these elusive and physics-bending strikes – but WHO DID IT BETTER?
Below, we have two World Cup knuckleball strikes for your comparison – one from the original master Juninho and the other from England’s own Harry Kane!
WATCH BELOW and tell us who you think did it best!
