He strikes a pose and picks his spot and sweetly curls the ball into the nets. As if on cue, he adds another wonderous strike to his portfolio of free kicks stunning the opponents into submission. His name is Archford Gutu.
The two wonder strikes from the Dynamos playmaker effectively takes the bite out of Black Mambas and are crushed 4-1. It is not the score-line that matters, but the execution of the free kicks by Gutu. The free kicks were so neatly taken that they bamboozled Mambas keeper Learnmore Jere. The first kick taken just outside the box was a classic as Gutu curled the ball past the Mambas wall. The second free kick, he chipped the ball over the wall to find the goalie on the wrong side of the action.
Dynamos is famed for brewing free kick takers and one of them was Elvis “Chuchu” Chiweshe, who applied sheer power and his full blooded shots did not give goalkeepers a chance.
Then there was Maxwell Dube — an admirer of David Beckham who also used to bend and dip them. The list of the master blasters is long but Gutu is in his own class. He has passion and his free kicks are sweetly taken. He does not take a free kick but he calculates before hitting the ball. Distance does not matter to this football artist and he does with perfection.
The Castle Lager premiership is littered with free kick specialists and CAPS United goalie Edmore Sibanda is one of them. Sibanda does not use a technique in his execution and is more like a cowboy from the Wild, Wild West. He unleashes a stinger, which burns everything in its path.
Football’s best free-kicks live long in the memory and so do those talented players who have turned being a dead-eye from a dead-ball situation and art form.
Whether your favourite is David Beckham’s stunning equaliser against Greece in 2001, Gazza’s sublime strike in the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal in 1991, or John Sheridan’s majestic goal for Leeds against Charlton in the 1987 play-off final replay, Gutu has his own style and is lighting the domestic premiership with his free kicks.
