A curling free kick is a direct free kick bent over or around the wall with sidespin, struck with the inside of the foot or the inner edge of the instep. Sidespin makes the ball curve in flight, and a lab study found people judging curved free kicks didn't account for the curve, which may be why keepers misjudge them. We coach the body work behind it: your angled run-up, where your standing foot lands, your lean and your follow-through.
Set up
Know the rules before you place the ball. The ball must be stationary. Defenders must be at least 9.15 m (10 yd) away, and if three or more form a wall, your team-mates must stay at least 1 m from it. The ball is in play once it is kicked and clearly moves, and you can't touch it again until another player has. Feinting to take the kick is allowed.
Pick your target and the line the ball will start on. The ball curves the way it spins: struck with the inside of the right foot it bends right to left, with the left foot left to right. Start it outside the end of the wall or the post and let the bend bring it back.
you're aiming at a start line, not straight at the corner.
Take a short run-up from a slight angle that you can repeat every time. No study we found sets a best angle or number of steps for a curler, so use the angle that lets you swing the inside of your foot freely, and keep it the same.
Plant & aim
Plant your standing foot about 6 in (15 cm) beside the ball, toes pointing at the target, knee slightly bent. Lean forward a bit at the waist, head down, eyes on the ball. Hold the arm opposite your kicking leg out from your body for balance.
steady over the ball, not sitting back.
Brush across it
On the backswing, bring the heel of your kicking foot up toward your backside. On the way down, keep your toes up and your ankle locked so the inside of your foot is a firm surface.
Strike the ball off-centre, on the side away from your standing foot, and below its middle to lift it over the wall. Use the inside of your foot, or the inner edge of your laces for more pace. Contact through the middle sends it straight; contact to one side makes it swerve; contact low makes it rise.
a firm, glancing hit on one side of the ball.
Make the spin with the angle of your foot, not by rubbing it. Spin comes from the angle between the direction your foot swings and the direction its face points, so swing slightly across the ball with the face angled. In a small lab study, an angled-face kick gave about the same ball speed and spin as rubbing the ball with the toe, with less load on the inner-thigh muscles.
Balance pace and bend. Pace needs contact near the centre; spin needs contact off-centre, so more bend costs some speed. A shot still needs enough power to beat the keeper, so add bend only while the ball still arrives with pace.
Follow through
Keep your toes up and bring your kicking leg across your body and slightly upward. Your opposite arm comes across your chest, and your head stays down and steady until the ball has gone.
your leg finishes across you, not straight at the target.
Feel it
A locked foot, a firm glancing contact on one side of the ball, and a body that stays over it. The ball starts outside your target, rises over the wall and bends back. Small changes in launch direction move the ball a long way at the goal (a study of international players found launch angles had to stay within about 3 degrees to hit a 1 m target), so a repeatable run-up and plant matter as much as the strike.
Fix-its
- No curve You hit through the middle with your foot face square to the swing. Strike to one side of the ball and swing slightly across it with the foot face angled.
- Ball doesn't clear the wall Contact too high on the ball. Strike below its middle, with your toes up and ankle locked.
- Ball flies over the bar Often from leaning back. Lean forward a bit at the waist, keep your head down and plant beside the ball, not behind it.
- Ball bends but floats in slowly Too far off-centre, not enough pace. Move the contact a little closer to the centre and swing faster.
- Shots spray left and right Your launch direction changes every kick. Mark your run-up start, plant in the same place with toes at the target, and pick one start line.
Drill
- Bent passes first: curve a ball around a cone to a partner, starting with a gentle arc and then a sharper bend, with each foot.
- Wall at the legal distance: stand a mannequin or a row of cones 9.15 m (10 yd) from the ball and curl over it into a goal corner. A small target (about 1 m square, as in the study of international players) shows your accuracy honestly.
- Film from behind: check that the ball starts on your chosen line and bends back, then change one thing at a time (contact or plant).
- Vary the spot: move the ball left, right, nearer and farther so you learn a start line from each position.
- Add a keeper only once the shape is reliable. Warm up first and build the number of kicks gradually; if your groin or inner thigh gets sore, stop for the day.
By position
Most useful for whoever takes your team's direct free kicks. US Youth Soccer introduces bending shots at U12 and bending passes at U14, so learn the bent pass and a clean instep drive first.
Sources
- US Youth Soccer Coaching Education Dept (Sam Snow) — Skills School Manual: Bending (swerve) pass with the inside of the foot (p. 28), Bending (swerving) shots (p. 43), Ball action (pp. 12–13), curriculum (p. 5) (2017)
- IFAB — Laws of the Game, Law 13: Free Kicks (latest edition)
- IFAB — Laws of the Game 2019/20 coming into force 1 June (2019)
- Goff — Power and spin in the beautiful game, Physics Today (2010)
- Craig, Berton, Rao, Fernandez & Bootsma — Judging where a ball will go: the case of curved free kicks in football, Naturwissenschaften (2006)
- Ozaki & Aoki — Kinematic and electromyographic analysis of infront curve soccer kick, Football Science (2008)
- Alcock, Gilleard, Brown, Baker & Hunter — Initial ball flight characteristics of curve and instep kicks in elite women's football, J Appl Biomech (2012)
Last checked 2026-10-30.