The Freestyle Football scene in India

In a Cricket crazy country, football (or soccer) is slowly making its presence felt. And it’s only a matter of time before freestyle football explodes in India.

What is Freestyle football?

Freestyle football (known as freestyle soccer in North America) is the art of dancing (more of self-expression) with a football; in this form, you perform various tricks, with any part of the body, using the football.

Freestyle Football is nothing like the regular football you see or play; its basically a solo performance (juggling skills) using the football.

Even before the sport became famous all over the world, people in circus used to show their juggling skills, using the football. Its the street performers that made the sport famous before it was officially established into an organized event.

Frenchman Brings Freestyle to Mumbai

Frenchman Sean Garnier (World Freestyle Champion) was in Mumbai where he caught the imagination of Mumbai’s unsuspecting pedestrians with his freestyle footballing skills. The man who introduced break dancing to freestyle football was in Mumbai to share his freestyle skills to strangers on the street. He will also the judge on the Red Bull Street Style National Finals (2014).

“The idea is to take football to the people and attract them towards the sport. Freestyle brings lot of aspects together — music, training, socialising and fitness. People like Neymar, Maradona or Ronaldinho so much because they do these tricks on the pitch. This is my way to contribute to freestyle. I travel extensively throughout the year, and everywhere, I make people smile with my tricks. I want to touch people, and hope that some of them start doing it as well,” says Sean Garnier who travels around the world with a football.

Alternate Career for Injured Footballers

Freestyle football is another career that football-players can consider, if there career has been abruptly ended due to injury.

That’s what happened to Garnier as well. Before he became a freestyle footballer, Garnier was a first division football player in France, but an injury kept him out. However, Garnier wasn’t ready to give up. So, he combined his love for football and break dance, and set to impress people on the stage.

“It was a part of life, when you don’t know what you are doing. Freestyle helped me forget the mistakes. It helped me come back. I started training with people, learning new tricks. And in 2008, I became the first Red Bull Street Style Champion,” says Sean Garnier.

Freestyle is all about impressing people. Freestyle footballers can easily beat professional footballers in a freestyle tournament. It’s beautiful to watch someone like Maradona or Ronaldinho do it, but they won’t last in a freestyle tournament, the standards have become very high. It’s like singles and doubles in tennis — both are different.

Indian Freestyle Football Guru

Aarish Ansari was injured while participating in a tournament hosted by Mumbai District Football Association (MDFA) in 2011. Off the field, he began juggling a football at home to pass time. Freestyling became a stress buster for him, and soon his day started revolving around the football.

Aarish is India’s representative at the Asian Freestyle Football Federation, the sport’s official governing body in Asia – where he is responsible for developing and promoting the sport in India.

Freestyle Football Competitions

Freestyle Football requires skill. practice and dedication, those who are good at it are also top athletes. But more than just a sport – it’s also an art form.

There are hundreds of competitions across the world, where the top freestyle footballers display their skills.

The Freestyle Football Federation founded its first world tour in 2011, and ever since it has been one of the top sporting spectacles. The first championships were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. With the competition being a major success, the organization changed the structure into a tour, hosting competitions across the world before culminating in a simply stunning final competition.

In 2006, Nike released a series of advertisements featuring professional footballers performing freestyle tricks. After the successful ad campaign, Nike hosted a series of televised freestyle competitions.