Freestyle Football

Freestyle Football is the art of juggling a football using any part of the body except the hands and elbows, combining football tricks, dance and acrobatics with music to entertain onlookers and to compete against other practitioners; the World Freestyle Football Association is its official governing body. Its roots connect to older Asian pastimes such as chinlone, jianzi and sepak takraw, practiced for roughly two thousand years, and circus performers such as Enrico Rastelli and Francis Brunn popularised early foundational moves including the Neck Stall and Around The World. Diego Maradona drew worldwide attention to freestyle in the 1970s and 1980s with his ball juggling warm up routine at SSC Napoli, and the sport's visibility grew further in the early twenty first century through Ronaldinho's starring role in Nike's Joga Bonito campaign, South Korean performer Mr Woo's record setting performances, Dutch freestyler Soufiane Touzani's innovations in lower body technique, and Sandy Levittas, competing as Bambiball, whose visibility helped broaden women's participation in the sport; Ronaldinho was named a World Freestyle Football Association ambassador in 2015, and elite footballers including Neymar Jr, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have all credited freestyle practice with helping their own development.