“?Laurent Koscielny has joked that Olivier Giroud’s scorpion-kick goal was no match for the rabonas that he regularly converts during Arsenal training drills.
The Gunners centre-back spoke to the “?club’s weekly podcast on Monday about the scoring attributes of compatriot Giroud, and admitted that the striker’s stunning strike against Crystal Palace was no match for the efforts that Koscielny himself put away during training and warm-up sessions ahead of matches.
Koscielny drew shocked faces when he dispatched one such rabona during the club’s Members’ Day in 2015/16 – an attempt that ended up going viral online – and the 31-year-old quipped that his Arsenal teammate would need to up his game to be able to compete with him.
He said: “I think mine is better because I’ve trained a lot with that skill! Every day, just before the warm up, I do it one or two times to practise my rabona.
“Oli’s was very lucky and he can try that 10 times but I’m not sure he’d score it 10 times. Mine is more difficult because I needed time to progress with my skills.
“He had a little bit of luck for that goal but he tried it, so it’s a nice goal. The goal was very quick because we started in our box and arrived in their box within four or five passes. The cross was behind Olivier but when you are confident, and I think he is, you can try those things.”
Putting the jokes to one side, Koscielny expressed his happiness at seeing Giroud finally be amongst the goals at the Emirates this term after a tough beginning to 2016/17 for the 30-year-old.
Giroud didn’t get off the mark until he notched a brace in the 4-1 win over Sunderland on October 29, with the France international losing his starting berth up front to Alexis Sanchez. Since then, however, the former Montpellier man has registered a further seven goals in 13 appearances, including three in his last three games.
Koscielny added: “He’s been building his confidence over the course of the season by scoring lots of goals, and he was able to use it to try that skill. It was amazing because it hit the bar on the way in. It was behind him, he tried the scorpion kick and it worked. That’s why it’s amazing.
“It was unbelievable and I’m happy for him because I think it can compete to be one of our best goals this year. It’s also good for his career to be able to score goals like this because they’ll be remembered at the end of his career.”?
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