The guy from Grozny hits free kicks better than anyone in Europe. Danya is just a Russian Messi!
The goal at the Lokomotiv goal was already the fifth for Utkin in the case, scored by a direct free kick. Even in the Big Five leagues, there are no such masters today.
It may not be just a matter of quantity. In order to fully express the impressions of Daniil Utkin’s free kicks, a short historical digression is inevitable. When you watch football for half a century, you see something that a fresh audience may not notice.
There was a time when free throw execution was not perceived as an art at all – neither by the audience nor by professionals. They scored with taste on major holidays, and even world-class luminaries. And if this happened, it was especially due to the force of the blow. Like, for example, the Brazilian Rivelino at the 1970 World Cup.
But the cunning blows, when the ball rotates and licks the “wall” of the upper or upper part, for the first time, probably showed the world the French, who appear – the legendary “musketeers”, as they were called repetitive. At the 1982 World Cup, Bernard Genghini did this, and then Michel Platini brought the skill to perfection.
For a long time we looked at it as an overseas curiosity – for some reason it did not seem to take root in our fields. And even great insights, like the head of Yuri Zheludkov to Spartak or Valery Shmarov to Dynamo Kiev, did not change the general impressions: they still exist in memory as a flash, and not as a conveyor.
If anyone put goals from free kicks on stream – Oleg Veretennikov, for example, or Alexander Aliev – he still relied more on strength. True, there was Dmitry Loskov, who rotated the healthy brain, moreover, with damage to the legs, but even he, probably, is inferior to today’s Utkin with sharpening detection. And not even in scoring accuracy, but in the performance skills.
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First, Utkin seems to be more diverse. Usually a player has a favorite angle, a favorite point – and only when the circumstances coincide does the hit turn out to be effective. Daniil does not have such a dependence – he freely directs the ball in any direction. Goalkeepers report that the “wall” will not protect against this guy, they twitch for it, which only lightens its width – three times out of five he scored in the goalkeeper’s corner.
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Secondly, in search of Utkin’s past flying possibilities with the masters, it is more difficult. Simply because countermeasures are improving all the time. At some point, the vogue came to the jumping “wall”, now they still put a “speed bump” behind it. But this does not interfere with Daniil – he spins the ball so that he still bypasses all the examinations on the way to the goal. It turns out that his blow is more sophisticated.
This is the main thing that impresses Utkin today. He performs technically very complex blows outwardly easily, as if effortlessly. We are dealing – do not be shy – with genuine art, completely atypical for our latitudes. That’s so free and so stable – no, among our guys you can’t remember this.
And this is not all that attention is possible here. It is curious, for example, to make a number of goalkeepers who cannot use Utkin’s penalties. it turns out that Daniil Khudyakov, who missed from him yesterday, is the only newcomer among them. All the rest are hardened uncles, at the age before birth. Anton Shunin, Marinato Guilherme, Yuri Dyupin (he missed Europe). The regulars of the national team, the most experienced people who have caught hundreds of free kicks in their lifetime – you can’t spend such on chaff. All the more valuable is what Daniel succeeded in doing.
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And, finally, another remarkable feature: the current goals are the first in Utkin’s life. Goals not in general, namely from free kicks. Before this season, in Krasnodar, if he scored, then only from the field, and in his current role, as a ruthless and skillful performing device, he opened only in Akhmat. Perhaps, on the trip of Andrey Talalaev, he found something for which he left here and which was not in his native club, I’m sure. Without confidence, it is simply impossible to score like him. And score so many.
And he scores the most in Europe. In none of the national leagues of the continent, including the “big five”, there is, in the sense of the case, a craftsman who would implement so many languid penalties. Utkin is probably in shock himself: he even beat Messi, his idol, erroneous fines once prompted him, the boy, to carry dummies after training and spin the ball around them over and over again. And now he’s better!
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About five or six years ago, experts named Utkin among the most talented juniors in the world. We have already forgotten about it, but now it turns out that it is advance. Let’s take care of the guys. And we wish to become better not only in free kicks.
Tinkoff RPL. 22nd round
Akhmat (Grozny) – Lokomotiv (Moscow) – 2: 3 (2:1)
Goals: Troshechkina, 20 (VIDEO). Utkin, 45 (VIDEO). – Zhemaletdinov, 10 (VIDEO). Isidor, 54 years old (VIDEO). Kukhta, 62 (VIDEO).