The history of Ricardo Quaresma and the trivela

Ricardo Quaresma was a budding young Portuguese talent during the early 2000s. He hasn’t met those expectations like his counterpart Cristiano Ronaldo who emerged from the same Sporting academy, but he has made a name for himself for a different reason: the trivela.

The trivela is the skill in which a player shoots the ball with curl applied by the outside of the boot. Most players are lucky to score one goal in their career using the technique, but Ricardo Quaresma has a highlight reel’s worth of trivela goals.

I set out to track Quaresma’s history with the skill asking questions, like when was his first trivela, which is his best trivela and where on the pitch does he score trivelas?

The trivela is a frivolous skill for many and signifies a lack of a weaker foot, but Quaresma has made it a staple of his game and is so adroit with the outside of his right-foot that he can create the angle and the curl necessary to score from virtually anywhere.

To arrive at my conclusions I referenced a number of YouTube videos, consulted stats sites, like Transfermarkt and WhoScored, compared kits, jersey numbers and hairstyles to narrow down exact dates and even translated Portuguese articles from a website called Trivela, so consider the following the definitive history of Quaresma and the trivela.