🎥 On This Day: Roberto Carlos scores mind-bending free-kick ☄️ | OneFootball

It’s exactly 23 years since Brazil and Real Madrid legend Roberto Carlos scored one of the most insane free-kicks of all-time.

Carlos was 24 and in his second season at Real Madrid when he lined up for Brazil against France in the opening match of the 1997 Tournoi de France.

With 21 minutes on the clock, the Verde-Amarela were awarded a free-kick for a foul on Romario just shy of 40 yards from goal and up stepped Carlos to take it.

The full-back was renowned for his incredibly strong and muscular thighs and after a trademark long run up, he struck the ball hard towards goal.

As far as goalkeeper Fabian Barthez and everyone else in the Stade de Gerland was concerned, the shot was flying at least a foot wide of the post but remarkably, at the last second it whipped back towards goal and flew into the net, clipping the post on its way in.

The astonishing strike baffled not just football fans but scientists too. A study of the goal carried out by four French physicists was published in the New Journal of Physics in 2010 while Israeli scientist Erez Garty created an interesting YouTube video explaining the magic behind the incredible swerve of the ball.

But for all the scientific explanations in the world, even Carlos himself still isn’t quite sure how he managed to score such a miraculous free-kick.

Carlos is now 47 and last year, he had a crack at re-creating the free-kick in his back garden.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite manage it.

It really was one of a kind.