Marcus Rashford was one of the most notable artists of FC Barcelonathe victory of Real Madrid Sunday, opening the score with a superb free kick. Beyond the meaning of the objective itself, Rashford strike ended Lionel Messidistinction as the only Barcelona player to score a direct free kick against Real Madrid in the 21st century.
With Lamine Yamal sidelined due to injury and Raphinha still working his way back to full fitness, coach Hansi Flick turned to Rashford as a starter on the right wing. The Englishman last started in La Liga on April 4 against Atletico Madrid, when he also scored, and Flick’s faith was rewarded almost immediately.
After Antonio Rudiger fouled Ferran Torres on the edge of the area, Rashford stepped up to take the free kick from the right side. Choosing to direct the ball towards Thibaut Courtois’ near post, Rashford caught the Belgian keeper with a step to his left, and the thunderous effort was unstoppable.opening what would become a 2-0 victory in just the ninth minute.
In doing so, Rashford ended Messi’s unique status as the only one Barcelona player who will score a direct free kick against Real Madrid in the 21st century. Messi had achieved this feat twice during his time at the club, making the record even more exclusive.
As pointed out OptaJose on X (formerly Twitter), Rashford’s effort was the third free-kick goal Barcelona have scored against Real Madrid this century.and the first since October 2012, when the previous one also took place during a La Liga match at the Camp Nou.
see also
Lamine Yamal wins his 7th career title at 18: how does his record compare to that of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the same age?
Since Messi’s departure in 2021, Barcelona have only converted three direct free kicks out of over 100 attempts, with Ferran Torres, Robert Lewandowski and Pablo Torre each scoring one. Rashford’s goal takes that total to four, a figure which underlines the significant drop in free-kick accuracy the club has seen since the Argentinian’s departure.
Messi’s free kick goals against Real Madrid
Lionel Messi is currently closing in on the top spot for all-time free kick scorers, with 71 to his name and just one behind Juninho Pernambucano for a place in the top three. Two of these goals were scored against Real Madrid wearing the Barcelona jersey.
The first one arrived in the Spanish Super Cup in August 2012when Messi fired a superb long-range free kick past Iker Casillas at the Santiago Bernabéu in the second leg, with Barcelona winning the trophy. The second came two months later, during a La Liga match at the Camp Nou, in a 2-2 draw in which Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo each scored a brace.
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
