Seems a little too incredible to be real. I know the LeBron commercial where he’s draining full court shots is fake (according to Snopes), but then again AFAIR the older one with Tiger woods and the golf ball trick was real (and apparently only took a handful of tries).
The other thing that makes me wonder is that a Brazilian friend of mine (the one who originally showed me the video) said that in an interview with Ronaldinho, he said that it was indeed real and that he totally meant to do it.
In case you’re not up on the world of futbol these days, Ronaldinho is the Lance Armstrong, the Michael Jordan, the Tiger Woods, of possibly the most popular and widely played sport in the world. Though by no means impossible, it seems quite unlikely that someone with his immense fame woud have any need of lying about something like this. “Oh yeah, um, I meant to do that.”
Watching it again, though, I can see how it could be easily faked.
I could believe it. While the quality’s not the best in that video, it looks like the goal frame is made of square tubing, so with a flat front, I could see where it would be easy to get a true bounce with practice.
Can anyone at least describe what the video apparently shows? There are plenty of people here named Derleth who can’t grab huge files with their slow-as-shit connection.
Player slips on his new Nikes and does some nifty ball juggling as he moves partway across the field.
He turns and faces the goal which is many tens of feet away, then kicks the ball right at the crossbar of the goal.
Ball bounces back through the air and is caught by the player, then kicked for another recoil, caught again, cycles a few times. Catches are impressive, stuff like catching it on his head.
The ball handling and fancy catches are real enough (watch some good soccer players, hackey-sack folks or jugglers), it’s the kick-rebound bit that is in question.
Not sure myself, the video is grainy enough that it could be FX a la “Shaolin Soccer”.
You would think. But then again, how do you know? I wouldn’t think anyone can do the kinds of things that Tiger Woods did with the golf club but apparantly he can.
Hmm… that’s quite a lot of skill if he can pull that off. The thing that gets me is that the camera zooms in almost immediately after he hits it off the cross-bar for the last time. That is, was the camera man just assuming Ronaldinho was not going to attempt it again? Did Ronaldinho inform the camera man beforehand that he would only hit the cross-bar four times? Fishy…
That trick Tiger did apparently isn’t even that unique among pros. I roomed with two golf players who were recruited back when I was in college, and I think one of them could do the same thing.
Sorry, I thought this was a question about the Konica Minolta commercial that had a team of eleven Ronaldinhos basically pulling a Harlem Globtrotter on a bunch of hapless opponents.
That one uses computer tricks, if you were wondering.
In real soccer games, pros routinely miss the goal by 20 feet or more from that distance. The video shows Ronaldinho not just hitting the crossbar four times in a row, but hitting the exact spot that would make the ball bounce directly back to him. If he were to miss that spot by even a foot, he would have to move to one side or another to receive the rebound, but he never does. There is no way that can be real.
Not really a fair comparison - in real soccer games, there are a lot of other factors at play (such as all those other people trying to take possession of the ball).
That’s my take on it. If he could hit a sweetspot that can’t be more than a millimeter or so wide–otherwise the ball would not return so accurately right back to him–then he would NEVER miss a goal, EVER. Is that the case? is he batting a thousand on the field?
But in real games, they are aiming at a larger target than a single spot on a crossbar, and anyway I’ve seen lots of big misses when the player wasn’t under any great pressure.
I don’t know about that. I watch pro basketball games where they can miss a three-pointer even when they’re wide open, but during warm-ups they can hit the basket from the same spot ten-out-of-ten easy. Just being in the game and having a fraction of a second less time can probably put a lot of pressure on a guy.
And I have no idea if that clip was real. I just hope it is cuz that is so dang cool.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m doubtful that the video is entirely genuine, but what we’re watching here has not much to do with stuff that happens within a game.
The ball juggling is nothing special for a player of his standard and personally I doubt the hitting the crossbar repeatedly except for two things. My old tennis coach told me once that he had seen Ken Rosewall asked should the letcord be done away with. He said Rosewall then proceeded to hit a string of serves that hit the tape and fell over the net so as to be unplayable.
In Rugby League conversions (points after) are taken in line with the point the try is scored. A couple of years ago Hazim El Mazri, the best goal kicker in Australia, converted after the siren from 6 inches inside the sideline. The next week on a Rugby League show he demonstrated his kicking technique. He would set up for the kick and then be blindfolded. They all just soared over like shots with a 9 iron. For the last one they took away the rugby ball and substituted a soccer ball. He hit it just as sweetly and over it went.
For what it is worth, a friend in advertising told me that the Tiger Woods footage was a fluke. They were actually out to shoot a scripted ad and Woods was doing the juggle the ball on the club face and then belt it a mile for his own amusement. One of the cameramen filmed it and when the director saw the crew watching, he asked Woods whether he could do it again. Apparently he could do it at will and endlessly if necessary, so it became the ad.
It could be a fake, but I think its doable for a man of Roni’s talents. He is not hitting the exact same spot on the crossbar, you can see he is adjusting his position each time he receives the rebound. On the third rebound he nearly loses control of the ball when he takes it on his knee. Four times in a row though, that is pretty amazing. Maybe he does it once or twice in a row and the film is spliced together?
I haven’t got a clue whether it genuine or not, the video isn’t clear enough.
I do remember with some chagrin though how he put a free kick from out near the touch line over David Seaman’s head to score a goal. It proved enough to effectively knock England out of the World Cup.
He is skillful, one of the world’s best, but I have my doubts about this.