Freestyle Soccer
Sport + Art = Happiness
5–9–17, Adil
So if y’all pay attention to your Facebook notifications, you’ll see that I tagged the 5 of you in a video which I loved. It’s basically some really sexy soccer freestyling. Here it is again:
With all that goodness I just saw, I felt the urge today to learn more about the world of freestyle soccer… more properly known around the world as Freestyle Football, for obvious reasons. Talking about FF as my FF — coincidence? I think not.
History
So why are people doing this instead of actually playing soccer? FF has existed since the early 1900s, but its explosion skyrocketed after a famous Nike TV campaign called Joga Bonito, which started before the 2006 World Cup, and which translated from Portuguese means “Play Beautifully.” The general idea was to promote actual soccer play that was skillful and dignified, not full of theatrical gimmicks. Often times, these commercials featured some of the world’s most famous soccer players goofing around with each other and doing totally ridiculous moves that would never fly on an actual soccer field… but they were beautiful. The main “host” and sponsor of these commercials was Frenchman Eric Cantona, one of the all-time greatest soccer players who made his career playing at Manchester United (winning 4 titles in 5 years), my favorite team. I fondly remembered watching these commercials while growing up, so I can definitely see how kids from our generation were inspired. Here’s a #tbt for those of you who were unlucky enough to never enjoy them in real time (it’s a compilation of a bunch of the commercials, but I just linked to one that starts at 13:54 and goes to 14:55. The dude in the red shirt schooling people is Thierry Henry, another of the all-time best, and the guy talking in the French accent is Cantona):
In this era of the 2000s, the Brazilian national team players were poster boys for playful, fun-to-watch soccer and featured prominently, which you can see from other commercials in the video above.
Of course this wasn’t the only reason FF gained popularity. The other major game-changer (heh) was YouTube. Once people could broadcast their skills globally, Jo Schmoe could make his own videos — you didn’t need to be Thierry Henry or Ronaldinho. In fact, Nike even sponsored a contest where people could submit their own clips and be judged by a global audience.
Soon, FF was on the the rise.
Rules and Competitions
I can’t say it any better than Wiki:
Freestyle football involves competitors doing a short performance of their skills, either three 30-second performances or a single minute-long performance depending on the stage of competition and the competition’s structure. Judges evaluate competitors on six criteria: difficulty, originality, all round skills, trick execution, mistakes, and variety. Players are not allowed to touch the ball with the hands or arms (e.g. acts which would be penalised as the handball offense in association football), such touches are considered mistakes by the judges.
There are international competitions hosted all over the world each year. The biggest ones are: FF World Tour (we should have one of these too), Superball — World Open Championships, Red Bull Street Style, F3 Asian Championships, F3 European Championships, and SISM — American Panna & Freestyle Tournament (panna= the nutmeg competition, where you score by taking the ball between your opponents’ legs). Unlike proper international soccer where you have the same ~10 countries consistently dominating world play, it’s cool to see how varied the FF community is — the list of winners includes people from the typical Brazil, UK, France, and Italy, but also Japan, India, China, and the UAE. Even the good ol’ US of A had 2nd and 3rd place competitors recently (but we mostly still suck).
Different styles
There are some broad styles that can be used to classify most tricks. Again, Wiki explains it well:
Lowerbody/Air Moves — This is the most popular with the new generation of freestylers. The ball is kept aloft using mainly the feet and legs. This style is considered to be the most difficult and the one that gives a multitude of opportunities to come up with new moves and impressive combinations.
Upperbody — This style is very popular in Japan and Russia. Most tricks are done with the head, chest and shoulders.
Sitting/Sit Down — This style has become well known. All tricks are executed while sitting on the floor with your legs in the air, and the inability to move after the ball greatly increases the difficulty of any trick performed.
Groundmoves — These are normal football moves, but then executed without an opponent. Skillful players can make the performance of groundmoves seem like a choreographed dance.
Special — This style has been introduced recently and refers to the acrobatic or break dance moves performed with a football that are becoming more popular in the freestyle football world.
Obviously, the best performances are those that can incorporate the most variety, so you have to have quite the arsenal of tricks in your bag. If you come up with a cool new move that other people copy, it seems like the FF World gives you credit. One of the most fundamental tricks is the Around the World (ATW), where you move your foot around the ball in one complete revolution as you kick it up. Some people have created different variations of this, and the result is that now tricks have names like these: Touzani Around the World (TATW), Lemmens Around the World (LATW), Palle Around the World (PATW), Mitchy Around the World (MATW), and Alternative Mitchy around the World (AMATW). This isn’t just for show; I watched a few tutorials for how to do some comboos, and they will legitimately reference “TATW” and expect you to know what it is. Point being, as with any other niche hobby, the FF culture is one that comes with its own vocab and style.
Some ballers
There’s a long list of “Freestlye Pioneers,” but I’ll just mention a few here because they piqued my curiosity.
Mr. Woo
I was really just intrigued by this dude’s name, but he’s apparently one of the OG homies in FF and one of FF’s absolute biggest names. His full name is Woo Hee-young, and he was born in 1963. Like many current freestylers, his first aspirations were to become a pro soccer player, before his dreams were dashed by injuries. He did leave Korea in his 20s to play for some German team (the Stuttgart Kickers…can’t image they were too good), but soon came upon a new goal: to be the greatest footballer entertainer in the world. And to a large extent, he succeeded. In 1989, he set the Guinness World Record by juggling a soccer ball with only his head for 5 hours, 6 minutes, and 30 seconds (wut). He performed at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Pele’s 50th birthday celebration at the 1990 World Cup, other celebrations at the 1994 World Cup, various shows in Vegas, and more. He performed during his 40s, and now in his 50s, it looks like he still hasn’t stopped freestyling. His latest endeavor? Pushing to make FF an Olympic Sport.
Side note: the only person Ronaldinho has ever asked for an autograph is Mr. Woo. He was that impressed by the dude’s skills. This is the same Ronaldinho that was the posterboy for those Joga Bonito commercials, and the same dude who was twice named the best soccer player in the world.
Side note 2: here is a hilarious story about 43-year-old Mr. Woo showing up to a random British kid’s middle school just to prove to a 10 year old’s dad that he could still kick his ass in a juggling contest. Indeed, it was no contest.
John Farnworth
John is a Briton, now 30 years old but still active as a freestyler and entertainer. He has held 4 Guinness World Records at various times, including most ATWs in a minute (83; though it looks like a high schooler in Japan got 93 in April 2017!). As a young kid, he was on track to professional football (outside America, there are soccer academies affiliated with pro teams that designed to train youngsters), but “at the age of 14, he read Simon Clifford’s Learn to play the Brazilian Way and, giving up professional football aspirations, started to practice the freestyle skills that were illustrated in the book. After a year of training, Farnworth joined one of the Clifford-franchised Brazilian Soccer Schools, in Manchester.” He really gave a good ol’ okey-doke to pro soccer.
Now, John has performed “live at FIFA World Cup Finals, the F1 Grand Prix, the Nou Camp and even on Broadway.” Apparently, one of the most popular female freestylers, Indi Cowie (who some of us follow on Insta?), was inspired to take up freestyle after watching one of John’s performances.
Here’s a low-quality vid if you’re curious; not mandatory watching (first video at the top of the post is still the coolest):
Jawad Blunt
I admit I only learned more about this guy because he’s Pakistani, and also because he already had his own Wiki page. His full name is actually Muhammad Jawad Aftab, and he’s currently 22 years old. Jawad started his sporting career with table tennis (ping pong) and badminton; in fact, he was a 3-year undefeated champion in badminton in high school. In 2010, he was inspired by — you guessed it — Joga Bonito videos (especially those of Ronaldinho). And today, he’s already been crowned the national champion of Pakistan… twice. He’s currently ranked 37th in the world in the rankings of Freestyle Football Federation F3.
So what’s up with the stage name? He explains:
“Blunt means dull. I call myself blunt because it will give me room for more improvement. I am not satisfied with what I am doing and it will provoke me to work more and so it will help me in my career and life.” He trains 6 to 8 hours a day and follows a strict diet of 6 meals a day with 3,000 calories and 200 grams of protein everyday which keeps him in shape.
Wow, that’s pretty intense. It gets crazier though. Just 20 days before the 2016 championship, the dude broke his hand. Ouch. But, the absolute worst: just 10 days before the tournament, his mother passed away. Talk about a rough 10 days. Against all odds, he still ended up winning the championship. Baller.
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