Ranking the best free-kick takers in the world right now: Szoboszlai, Fernandes, Messi… | OneFootball

Top players from Liverpool, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Arsenal feature in our ranking of the best free-kick takers across world football.

As tactical margins shrink, dead-ball specialists are increasingly decisive. The names featured here represent the gold standard for free-kick excellence in 2025.

Here’s our ranking of the best free-kick takers in the world in 2026.

9. Hakan Calhanoglu

We instinctively think of Inter’s dead-ball specialist as one of the most dangerous free-kick takers around, but the stats no longer really bear that out.

The Turkey international scored nine(!) free-kicks for Bayer Leverkusen in the 2014-15 season, but that was over 10 years ago.

He was still pretty deadly at Milan, too, but he’s scored just one in the last five seasons.

8. James Ward-Prowse

The Premier League’s answer to ‘If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’

Can Ward-Prowse still be considered a great free-kick taker if he barely makes it onto the pitch to take them?

We’re saying yes. Ish. But whereas he might’ve had the top spot a few years back, he finds himself near the bottom of this ranking, having not scored a direct free-kick in almost three years.

That goal was a match-winner away to Chelsea in Southampton’s ultimately doomed battle against the drop in 2022-23. He hasn’t scored a single one since moving to West Ham.

There’s no logical reason to think Ward-Prowse would’ve suddenly become rubbish at free-kicks in his late twenties.

We wouldn’t mind seeing him move to find out once and for all whether he’s lost that Midas touch.

7. Declan Rice

…Somewhere in the darkest bowels of the West Ham Training Ground, Ward-Prowse looks at his phone, opening a WhatsApp message that links to this very article.

“What? A player with just two career free-kick goals better than me? You’re taking the p*ss, aren’t you?”

Sorry, them’s the breaks. What free-kick goals they were.

One was nominated for the Puskas Award. The other could’ve been. And they were against Real Madrid in a Champions League quarter-final.

Rice has fizzed in a few that have come close since then.

And while this ranking is concerned with goals only, a special shoutout to Rice’s wicked deliveries – inevitably onto the bonce of Gabriel Magalhaes – from dead-ball situations. Undefendable.

6. Cristiano Ronaldo

We assume that anyone who considers Ronaldo the best free-kick taker in the world has been in a coma since he was playing in the prime Barclays era.

Let’s be honest. The veteran has been pretty rubbish at free-kicks for a long, long time.

The overwhelming majority of Ronaldo’s free-kicks – of which he still takes many in his vain attempt to reach 1000 career goals out in Saudi Arabia – don’t even test the goalkeeper.

Ronaldo’s scored one of his last 49 attempts, and didn’t score a single free-kick in 2025. But he’s not completely useless. He did score three in 2024.

And come the World Cup, on the biggest stage, we’d still greet any presentable opportunity with a gulp of anticipation. Old habits die hard.

5. Trent Alexander-Arnold

Liverpool’s journey to the 2018 Champions League final began with a teenage Alexander-Arnold scoring a peach of a free-kick goal in a preliminary qualifier against Hoffenheim.

The curling effort was the very first of his Liverpool career and hinted at the dead-ball prowess he’d make his calling card in years to come.

The right-back hasn’t scored bucketloads since then – just eight for his boyhood club – but he was usually good for one or two a season. That’s a pretty rare feat, as the names below him will attest.

It’ll be interesting to see how often he actually gets to take them at Real Madrid, given the competition and egos in that dressing room. He’s yet to open his account for Los Blancos.

4. Hulk

Here’s a blast from the past. Pun only semi-intended.

The Brazilian will join Ronaldo in the quadragenarian club later this year. Hulk is still going and still banging them in back home.

He scored four free-kick goals in the 2025 Brazilian season, taking his career tally to a not-too-shabby 32.

3. Bruno Fernandes

The Portuguese playmaker isn’t wildly prolific. He’s scored a grand total of 13 direct free-kicks in his career, averaging around one a season at Manchester United.

But the numbers are trending upwards in the right direction. Fernandes scored three last season, and has one so far in 2025-26.

That’s a vitally important asset in a side that is so shambolically underperforming. His free-kicks have helped dig out points in chaotic games against Everton, Arsenal and Bournemouth over the past 12 months. Clutch.

2. Dominik Szoboszlai

“Yeah, I did my homework,” Szoboszlai explained of his sneaky under-the-wall effort against Marseille.

“I got told that if no one is lying down maybe I can have a chance to hit it under the wall and no one was laying down so I tried it, and it worked out.”

A lesson there in the importance of the draft excluder.

Not only can he use his head, Szoboszlai can absolutely wallop them in from range too. Just ask Arsenal.

1. Lionel Messi

As with the likes of Ward-Prowse, Calhanoglu and his eternal rival Ronaldo, Messi’s free-kick powers might not be what they once were.

But this is a man with 69 career free-kick goals. Only Pele (70), Juninho Pernambucano (72), Roberto Dinamite (75) and Marcelinho (78) have scored more in football history.

Messi peaked in 2018 with 10 free-kicks that calendar year, but he’s still totting them up. He scored three for Inter Miami last year, including in an eye-catching 2-1 victory over Porto in the Club World Cup.