Lionel Messi's Free Kick Similar To Stephen Curry's Shooting, Sports Scientist Claims

A sports scientist compared Lionel Messi’s free kick strategy to NBA superstar Stephen Curry’s shooting.

Messi has been magnificent in free kicks since year 2012. He managed to hit the back of the net 12 times for his club between that year and 2014-15 season. What’s even more fascinating about it was Messi’s free kicks was that a lot of which were game-changers, 2 came against Real Madrid and another in the Champions League against Ajax.

Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic even said that “when Messi gets a free-kick, we are already thinking about the celebration.” Indeed, Barcelona are grateful for their captain’s immense free kick abilities. However, none of them can really figure out how Messi jumped from being an average free kick taker to arguably the best in the world.

According to Messi, who revealed his own secret after he scored two free kicks in one game against Espanyol last season, he’s trying to “follow a ritual” whenever he’s taking dead-ball shots, Squawka reported.

“I try to follow a ritual. Trying to do it in the same way if it works so that it comes off again,” Messi revealed.

While Messi is convinced that he has been following a ritual in his free kicks, sports scientist Dr. Rajpal Brar has a different analysis. As per Brar, Messi’s style is called “neuromuscular priming,” and it basically applies to the moments before the ball is actually struck such as eliminating “internal distractions” like anxiety.

“It’s helping prepare your body and your mind focus, and therefore allow some of that muscle memory to take over while eliminating what I call internal distractions, like anxiety,” Brar said on a recent "Squawka Talker" podcast episode.

Brar further explained that Messi’s three-step pattern that typically consists of two short strides followed by a long stride, with what will ultimately become his planted or non-striking–leg, creates a rhythm which allows muscle memory to kick in and reduces the impact of psychological interference.

More importantly, Brar noticed an something Messi is doing after the ball is struck, wwhich was kind of similar to what Golden State Warriors star Curry is doing everytime he shot the basketball.

“When Messi kicks the ball, he watches it intently the entire way into the eventual outcome and that’s what I call a mind-body feedback loop. So instantly he can connect as he’s watching what he just did with his body, to the results and then he’s able to store that and subconsciously understand, naturally you start to move towards those results and that feel on the free-kick, that brings the better outcome,” Brar pointed out.

“It’s almost like you still have that imprint of the movement in your memory and therefore you can connect it directly. The other example I used is Steph Curry. When you watch him shoot a shot, he’s watching the ball the whole way, so it might be a similar parallel in terms of that feedback,” Brar added.