The Origins of Football Freestyling

By Ryan Morrison

The football freestyling craze announced its arrival on the world with a bang in the early 21st century as Nike launched the first global freestyle championships in 2000. Nike ran an advertising campaign using stars from the world of football including Zidane and Ronaldinho. This along with Youtube was to make stars of previously unknown players such as Hee Young Woo (Mr Woo) who had played professionally in Germany for Stuttgart Kickers but soon retiring to freestyle full-time.

Beating 30,000 competitors to be crowned Freestyle King UK Champion, Abbas Farid has earned the reputation as a pioneer of freestyle and has set a new Guiness World Record of 88 heel juggles in sixty seconds. This guy is unbelievable, it is worth betting he is going to become very well known. He was invited to the San Siro to freestyle with Ronaldinho and while Abbas was showing off his latest moves, Ronaldinho just stood there applauding him. (see video after the jump)

If you get a chance, you have got to have a look at some of these guys Palle, Jeremy Lynch, Billy Wyngrove, John Farnworth, Jeon Kwon and many more.

Ryan Morrison has his own site dedicated to football at http://www.myoffside.com/