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how many free kicks has declan rice scored

He has scored 2 direct free‑kick goals in his senior professional career, both in the same game against Real Madrid in April 2025.

How Many Free Kicks Has Declan Rice Scored?

Quick Scoop

For most of his career, Declan Rice was known as a destroyer in midfield, not a free‑kick specialist. Then one Champions League night changed the narrative in spectacular fashion.

  • Across his first 338 professional games, he didn’t score a single direct free‑kick.
  • In game number 339, he scored two direct free‑kicks against Real Madrid for Arsenal.
  • Those remain his only recorded direct free‑kick goals so far.

So if you’re searching “how many free kicks has Declan Rice scored?” the current, best-documented answer is: two , both in that famous Champions League tie vs Real Madrid.

Match context: the night it happened

In April 2025, Arsenal faced Real Madrid in the Champions League, and Rice produced a shock masterclass from dead balls.

  • He had never scored a direct free‑kick before that match, despite hundreds of games for West Ham, Arsenal and England.
  • He then buried two free‑kicks in about 12 minutes in the second half, helping Arsenal to a 3–0 win.
  • The game put him in an elite group: only the fifth player in Champions League history to score two free‑kicks in a single match.

Before that night: 0 free‑kick goals.
That night: 2 free‑kick goals.

What about league and career stats?

Detailed league data backs up the idea that Rice is not a regular free‑kick scorer in domestic play.

  • Premier League stats list 0 free‑kick goals for Rice across all league seasons with West Ham and Arsenal.
  • Reports around the Madrid match note he had taken only around a dozen direct free‑kicks in his career before scoring those two.
  • That means his free‑kick reputation is built almost entirely on that one blockbuster Champions League performance.

In other words, he’s not a long‑time set‑piece taker like Ødegaard or Saka; he just had one unforgettable night that instantly became part of Arsenal lore.

Forum and “trending topic” angle

On forums and social media, Rice’s free‑kicks became a mini‑myth because of how unlikely they were.

  • Fans highlighted that he’d gone 338 games without a free‑kick goal, then suddenly looked like a prime Beckham or Juninho.
  • Some Reddit users even tried to calculate the odds of him both taking and scoring two free‑kicks in the same match, coming up with vanishingly small probabilities.
  • The narrative that he “never takes them, then bangs in two vs Real Madrid” became a popular talking point across news sites, YouTube breakdowns and LinkedIn posts.

So when people ask “how many free kicks has Declan Rice scored?” it’s usually part of that wider story: a defensive midfielder who suddenly turned into a free‑kick hero for one night.

TL;DR

  • Declan Rice’s total direct free‑kick goals in senior professional football: 2.
  • Both came in the same Champions League match for Arsenal vs Real Madrid in April 2025.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.