<p>Considered one of the most incredible goals in international football, the free kick was no fluke, physicists have claimed, according to the Daily Telegraph.Roberto Carlos kicked a shot from 115 feet against France in 1997 which was seemingly heading for the corner flag but it "curved like a banana" to land in the net. The bend was so pronounced that French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez made no move for the ball, thinking it would go away safely. <br /><br />Even a ball boy standing 30 feet away from the goal ducked thinking it was going for him until the ball made a last moment sweep and landed in the back of the net.<br /><br />Though the free kick was written off by many as an "incredible lucky chance" and that it must have been helped by a gust of wind, scientists have now applied the laws of physics to settle the debate.<br /><br />Using tiny plastic balls and a slingshot, a research team from the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau near Paris varied the velocity and spin of balls travelling through water to trace different trajectories.<br /><br />While their research confirmed the long known "Magnus effect", which gives a spinning ball a curved trajectory, it also revealed a fresh insight for spinning balls that are shot over a distance equivalent to Carlos' free kick.</p>.<p>The friction exerted on a ball by its surrounding atmosphere slows it down for the spin to take on a greater role in directing the ball's trajectory, thereby allowing the last moment change in direction, which in the case of Carlos' kick left Barthez stunned.<br /><br />"Carlos' kick started with a classical circular trajectory but suddenly bent in a spectacular way and came back to the goal, although it looked out of the target a small moment earlier," Christophe Clanet and David Quéré, researchers from École Polytechnique, said.<br />"People often noticed that Carlos' free kick had been shot from a remarkably long distance, we show in our paper that this is not a coincidence, but a necessary condition for generating a spiral trajectory," they added.The research paper was published Thursday in the New Journal of Physics.</p>
<p>Considered one of the most incredible goals in international football, the free kick was no fluke, physicists have claimed, according to the Daily Telegraph.Roberto Carlos kicked a shot from 115 feet against France in 1997 which was seemingly heading for the corner flag but it "curved like a banana" to land in the net. The bend was so pronounced that French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez made no move for the ball, thinking it would go away safely. <br /><br />Even a ball boy standing 30 feet away from the goal ducked thinking it was going for him until the ball made a last moment sweep and landed in the back of the net.<br /><br />Though the free kick was written off by many as an "incredible lucky chance" and that it must have been helped by a gust of wind, scientists have now applied the laws of physics to settle the debate.<br /><br />Using tiny plastic balls and a slingshot, a research team from the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau near Paris varied the velocity and spin of balls travelling through water to trace different trajectories.<br /><br />While their research confirmed the long known "Magnus effect", which gives a spinning ball a curved trajectory, it also revealed a fresh insight for spinning balls that are shot over a distance equivalent to Carlos' free kick.</p>.<p>The friction exerted on a ball by its surrounding atmosphere slows it down for the spin to take on a greater role in directing the ball's trajectory, thereby allowing the last moment change in direction, which in the case of Carlos' kick left Barthez stunned.<br /><br />"Carlos' kick started with a classical circular trajectory but suddenly bent in a spectacular way and came back to the goal, although it looked out of the target a small moment earlier," Christophe Clanet and David Quéré, researchers from École Polytechnique, said.<br />"People often noticed that Carlos' free kick had been shot from a remarkably long distance, we show in our paper that this is not a coincidence, but a necessary condition for generating a spiral trajectory," they added.The research paper was published Thursday in the New Journal of Physics.</p>