Why has scoring free kicks like Maradona gone out of style?

If you look at the way Maradona scores his free kicks is not fancy at all. He doesn't try to force them in with power like Ronaldo does, or to curve them in to just the right angle. In fact, by today's standard, the ball moves rather slow. They are simply precise. This style seems like the easiest to do, yet not many free kick takers choose to do it this way anymore (although I'm sure there are plenty of examples).

The obvious scapegoat is that balls now are much lighter than they were even 10 years ago, and are much more unpredictable so curving them in makes more sense now. Another possible answer could be that as a result of this lightness the balls don't "fall" as easily as before, which would make scoring this type of free kick harder. You would need to curve them upwards to bring them downwards faster.

Let us not forget that Maradona is extremely accurate when he kicks the ball. I saw a Zidane video, probably here itself, where is standing at the penalty spot and kicking the ball at the cross bar and making it come back to kick again at it. Zidane could do it only once and he said Maradona could easily do it 4 or 5 times at a stretch.

I saw a lot of curves there Not sure I know what you mean

yea they look pretty similar to any freekicks. the only real difference is his technique is simpler. he's just kicking the ball normally... i think some players in modern day don't have the kicking accuracy he had, so they use different fancy techniques to compensate for their lack in basic kicking accuracy (techniques that they couldn't pull off in normal play because they need more time and space.) maradonnas freekick technique is just the same as a normal shot mostly

also the ball being heavier thing is the other valid point

its only effective near the area

his style is a mix of power and placement and we probably wont be seeing those anymore thanks to plastic lightweight balls that make the placement part almost impossible