Declan Rice scored the first direct free-kick of his professional career to give Arsenal the lead in their historic victory over Real Madrid. Then, 12 minutes later, he did it again.
Both free-kicks in the 3-0 win were of the highest quality, too, as the England midfielder first bent a sublime strike around Real Madrid’s wall before thundering an unstoppable shot into the top corner of Thibaut Courtois’ goal to leave Martin Odegaard standing with his hands on his head and the Emirates losing its collective mind.
“What are the odds?” Mikel Arteta asked, and quite. Rice had gone 338 appearances in his career without scoring a free-kick, only to become the first player in Champions League history to score two in the same knockout game - as well as only the fifth overall, joining Rivaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Hakim Ziyech.
Arsenal had also gone almost four years without scoring directly from a free-kick, since Odegaard’s against Burnley in September 2021, a fact that Arteta revealed made Rice even more determined to step up when Bukayo Saka was fouled on the edge of the box. Saka played his part, too, convincing Rice to take a shot when set-piece coach Nicolas Jover was asking for the cross.
“It's been in the locker, but I've hit the wall too many times or it's gone over the bar,” Rice explained to Amazon Prime Video. “Originally we were going to cross it and then I've just seen the wall and the goalkeeper's position. So I thought just go for it. And Bukayo [Saka] said to just feel it.
“The second one I had the confidence. I hit it. It's not going to hit me now because there's another leg to go. I'm excited, I'm happy, I'm over the moon. But in a few years time this will really hit me that what I've done tonight was really special.”
Rice admitting that he noticed the position of the Real Madrid wall and Courtois before shooting was revealing. From the angles behind the ball, there didn’t look to be an obvious gap: but it was a small wall, made up of just four players and with Fede Valverde (who is hardly a towering presence) on the outside, where he should have been positioned to be in line with the near post.
Arsenal legend Thierry Henry noticed it too. “I love Thibaut Courtois, but if you have two men on the ball, you can’t have a wall of four people,” Henry said on CBS. “The position of the wall is questionable, especially when you have two men on the ball, you cannot have only four players there because that ball is easy to bend around. But for Declan Rice to realise it, that’s outstanding.”
Courtois believed the fouls leading to both Rice goals were unnecessary. “They are fouls where there is no danger,” the Belgian lamented. “In the fouls, I thought I had set up the wall well. I always put in an extra man so that the shot does not get past. I can take that responsibility, I could have put one more man even, but I thought I wasn’t going to get tested.”
Rice had only shot from a handful of free-kicks since joining Arsenal, with Odegaard or Saka tending to take duties since he has been at the club, but another element of this to mention is that it’s only been a year or so since he’s been taking set-pieces at all. In Rice’s first few months at Arsenal, he was sent into the box on free-kicks and corners because of his height and physicality.
Yet the midfielder is an excellent ball-striker and Rice’s dangerous inswinging corner delivery from the left was only discovered during Arsenal’s mid-season training camp in Dubai last February when Jover wanted a “switch-up”. It led to a flurry of assists in the second half of last season, where Rice’s technique from the dead-ball was evident.
But it’s fair to say no one saw this coming as Rice and Saka stood over the first of Arsenal’s free-kicks against Madrid. From such positions, many players try to beat the goalkeeper by going over the wall, attempting to quickly get the ball up and down with top spin only to blast over the crossbar, but Rice set his shot a good three or four yards outside of the post and bent it back, generating a huge amount of power and spin while also keeping it fairly low.
The second was unstoppable. “You can put 10 goalkeepers there, they will never save it,” Henry said. Here, the wall was taken out of the equation completely, with Rice targeting the side of Courtois but thumping the ball into the top corner with incredible pace and a little more side spin. “The second is a great goal,” Courtois conceded.
There was also a little trick Arsenal used in the wall with Gabriel Martinelli, Jakub Kiwior and Mikel Merino standing in the position where Rice would eventually aim, only to split and wheel around the Real Madrid wall at the last moment. Though, given the sheer quality of Rice’s strike, it may have made little difference.
“This night was all about two factors; one is the atmosphere that we created 15 minutes before kick-off with something I haven’t seen before,” Arteta beamed afterwards. “And then the magic, the individual moments that decide all matches. And the first two goals from Declan sums up the night.”
