One of the joys about being able to play football is that you can head out onto the pitch and try to emulate the skills and moves carried out by your footballing heroes. Whether it be the Cruyff Turn, the Elástico or La Croqueta, a move popularised by Andrés Iniesta, it is always fun trying to look like the professionals.
Perhaps one of the trickiest moves in the sport is also one of the ones that looks the coolest, with the Rabona giving you a chance to produce a piece of skill that can leave your opponent dumbstruck and your teammate in a great position to go on and win the game.
What is It?
Kieran Clarke, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Whilst it is obviously fun to try and copy the moves pulled off by professional players, the Rabona isn’t really one that you’re likely to see on the football pitch all that often. That is because it is the kind of skill that can look brilliant when you pull it off and look ridiculous if you don’t. When it is used in a real-world situation, it is normally done by an attacking player that either wants to use their stronger foot to kick the ball or else just fancies showing off a little. If you find yourself in that situation, pulling the Rabona out of the bag can make you look like an awesome football player full of skill.
The way that you pull off a Rabona is by having the ball slightly to the side of your weaker foot. You then manoeuvre your stronger foot behind your standing leg, kicking through to send the ball on its way. The winger Giovanni Roccotelli helped to popularise it in the 1970s, but players such as Erik Lamela and Robert Lewandowski have since used it in high-stakes games. In one sense, all it really does is add a bit of flair to your play. In another, it can see you get yourself out of a tight situation in order to find a pass to a teammate from a seemingly impossible situation, or even score.
Admittedly, the main reason a lot of players use the Rabona, other than so that they can show off, is because one foot is much weaker than the other. You would actually benefit from spending your time making your weaker foot stronger on the training pitch, but that wouldn’t look anywhere near as awesome as being able to play a Rabona in a live match. The name comes from an Argentinian phrase, hacerse le rabona, which essentially means to play hooky, with the childish nature of the title giving you an impression of the sort of thing that is involved in trying to make such a move work.