Freestyle Football is Trendy Nowadays, But How and Where It Evolved?

In this day and age, we often see freestylers perform ridiculous and yet amazing tricks and moves not only on TV advertisement but on the internet as well. Whenever I play footy with my fellow friends, they enjoy doing fancy footwork regularly which sometimes makes me envy and sometimes amazes me as well. At the time, I wondered how and where it all began.

I took the initiative to ask a couple of my friends and browse through forums. Most of them thought freestyle football came from Brazil because a lot of amazing skillful kids and players out there who can do bizarre tricks that are not even in the book. But some say it came from Holland probably because of Edgar Davids' background and how he used to play at the backyards with his friends.

Where it began remains unknown and mysterious among us football fanatics. Prior to the late 90s, players like Pele, Johan Cruyff, De Stefano and others all juggled a ball for practice to improve their control techniques (touches, balance, coordination).

After that, freestyle football really took off in the early 80s when Diego Maradona displayed his mastery in control (juggle a ball, an orange, a golf ball, a tennis ball etc) and performed in half-time shows during Argentine Clausura matches. In fact, one of his famous skills of all time was the Maradona 7 where a player juggle the ball with the right foot, then the left foot, followed by the right thigh, then the left thigh, subsequently the right shoulder, then the left shoulder and finally the head.

While Maradona became successful and popular, others tried to follow but failed. His brilliance inspired Hao Young Woo, a South Korean who worked extremely hard to develop his juggling skills and eventually earned a reputation as a football entertainer and inspired new generation such as Abbas Farid as well.

As the years gone by, most freestyle players were Mr. Woo inspired, preferring to juggle and control the ball using all parts of the body only. Until the early 21st century, Touzani and Nelson were among the new generation of freestylers preferring fancier tricks with different combination and variations of around-the-worlds and other lower body tricks. Both Touzani and Nelson and other freestylers compete in Amsterdam for the MOTG (Masters of the Game) competition in 2003.

Back in the days of Pele, Maradona and Cruyff, the word "freestyle" was unknown and no one has ever heard that word before in the world of soccer at least until the late 90s. Then, in the late 21st century, Nike came in as they launched an advertising campaign promoting the players and the competition. One of campaigns is to allow participants to submit their own video clip and receive feedback worldwide at NikeFootball. Thus, opens the door for the likes of Touzani and Abbas Farid to display their skills worldwide and become more popular.

In addition, other service companies such as You Tube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, Metacafe, Grouper, iFilm and others provide similar websites that allows you to upload your own videos including your own football clips. So that other would-be freestylers are able to submit their own video as well.

Although recent changes made throughout the decade especially the internet have raise it's popularity, people are yet to know the origins of freestyle football and will continue to speculate it.

Discover more information on freestyle football, players, skills, articles and others related to freestyle soccer tricks and tips at http://www.soccer-tricks.blogspot.com