Football freestyle

The main impetus to the development of football freestyle was the video of Sufian Tuzani, shot in 2003. In this video, Tuzani demonstrates the tricks of various disciplines. In this video, it shows a combo, that is, it does tricks one by one. For the first time one of the most popular TATW (Touzani Around The World) freestyle tricks was filmed. Seeing this video, people began to repeat these tricks, to invent more complex ones. Began to classify tricks by discipline.

Freestyle football is divided into various disciplines:

• Lowerbody / Air Moves (Air Music or Lover). Tricks with the ball in the air. These are the most popular movements among most modern freestylers. Several complex tricks perfect in a row are called “combos”. And the tricks that go in a row, without “lining up” between them, are called nt combos.
• Upperbody (Upper). Most tricks are performed on the head , chest and shoulders, without the use of hands.
• Sitting (sitting). This style has gained fame thanks to the popular freestylers from Amsterdam Abdullah. All tricks are performed from a sitting position on the ground.

The names of the stunts often include the name of the freestyler who performed the trick for the first time, for example PATW (palle around the world) - named Rickard "Palle" Sjölander.

• Around the World (ATW) (around the world). This is also quite a popular movement, in which the player is required to throw the ball into the air and circle the same foot around it, with which the ball was thrown before it touches the ground to throw it up again.
• Crossover . Another basic movement. The player must throw the ball into the air with a supporting foot, while at the same time carry the other foot over the ball.
• Touzani around the World (TATW). The most popular trick. It is a combination of ATW, executed from the outside, and Crossover.
• Mitchy around the world (MATW). No less popular. The same as TATW only “around the world” is done from the inside.
• Stall (hold the ball). Means to catch and hold the ball in a stationary position. Many freestylers are able to catch and hold the ball on both sides of the head, on the back of the neck, or fix it on the heel and on the back of the thigh.
• Combos (combo). The sequence of tricks when one movement goes to another without chasing. For example, here is a combo: atw-hatw-hatw-atw-atw-htw-tatw-2htw-matw-htw. Combos have gained wide popularity since the beginning of the two thousandth year and are gaining popularity.
• NT Combos

The abbreviation NT stands for “No Touch”, that is, without a touch. For example: MATW-AMATW NT - tricks are performed without intermediate touch, in a row.

Discipline Low Air :

• T - Touzani (tatw). The trick that Video Soufiane Touzani’s first freestyle football player did on the video is done with the atw with his right foot (to the outside) and in the air you have to hit the ball under your left foot, or vice versa. This trick can be described as atw (out) - crossover nt
• M - Mitch (matw). The opposite of Touzani, does the same as tatw, only the first atv to the inside.
• L - Lemmens (latw). Martin Lemmens ( eng. Martijin Lemmens ), a Dutch freestyler, who first recorded a double turn of the foot around the ball without touching the video. The ball is hit by the right foot, two turns are made in the air around the ball, and the ball is hit again with the right foot.
• P - Palle (patw). One of the coolest freestylers in the world for Low Air. He was the first to record on the video a triple turn of the leg around the ball.
• S - Skora (satw). Pavel Skora. Polish freestyle, which is not only the master of Low Air combo, but also other types of Football Freestyle. Is one of the best football freestylers to this day.
• nt (no touch) - without touching, that is, for example tatw-amatw nt - this means tatw you do with your right foot and immediately while the ball flies you do amatw with your left foot (or vice versa).
• K (knee) - means that the first touch of the ball is made by the knee.
• N (neck) - the trick starts with the neck.
• A (alternate) - indicates that the trick begins with the opposite leg, rather than the original.
• H (homie / hopping) - means that there is no intermediate touch of the ball. For example, HTatw differs from Tatw in that the ball is not beaten throughout the whole stunt.

• Russian Football Freestyle Contest is the annual official Russian football freestyle championship.
• Superball - World Cup freestyle football, which is held annually in the Czech Republic since 2009. It differs in that anyone can take part in competitions.
• Red Bull StreetStyle 2008 - the first World Football Freestyle Championship, which was attended by more than forty countries (including Russia). The champion was the French freestyler Sean.
• Red Bull StreetStyle 2010 is the second World Freestyle Football Championship. The Norwegian Azun became the champion.
• Red Bull StreetStyle 2012 - the third World Championship in freestyle football. Japanese became champion Tokura.
• Red Bull StreetStyle 2013 - 4th World Freestyle Football Championship. The champion was the Pole Szymo.
• Red Bull StreetStyle 2014 - Fifth FIFA World Cup. The champion was the Englishman Andrew Henderson.
• Red Bull StreetStyle 2016 is the sixth FIFA World Cup. Argentinean Charly Iacono became the champion.

In Russia, football freestyle quickly became popular and continues to gain momentum. At the moment, the country is one of the strongest in the world in freestyle football. Russian freestylers hold world records in every discipline except groundmoves. Now in Russia more than 200 people regularly play football freestyle.

Freestylers from Russia have world achievements in various football freestyle disciplines. Anatoly Yanchev ( Moscow ) won in 2013 and became the world champion in the challenge discipline, Anton Pavlinov ( Tyumen ) in 2014 and 2016 won the world champion title in the discipline of sick-3, Timur Alekseev ( Yekaterinburg ) in 2015 won the world champion title in the max1 discipline, Yegor Ponomarev ( Moscow ) in the same 2015 became the world champion in the rookie battle discipline.

Russian freestylers can rightfully consider themselves the best in low-air freestyle, an example of Akim Kovalev ( Rostov-on-Don ), who is the absolute world leader in this style of football freestyle. Arseny Klementiev ( St. Petersburg ), who has won numerous Superball World Championships as well as the 2012 European champion in low-air discipline, is not far behind him.

Russian freestylers are also among the best in the sitting discipline. At the world championships competitions are not held separately in the discipline of sitting. Nevertheless, in online tournaments that are held on the network based on the video of participants, Russian freestylers show the highest level. Almost all world records of freestyle are Russian. The initial contribution to the development of the siting in 2008 was made by freestyler - Nazim Psardia ( Kazan ). Since 2011, further development is associated with Evgeny Baruzdin (St. Petersburg), who has an extraordinary level of sitting, is the vice-champion of Europe and holds the majority of world records. Also worth noting is Ravil Gataullina (Kazan), who has the highest level in this discipline.

Russian freestylers set the bar in upper freestyle too. Since 2007, when freestyle was just beginning to develop in Russia, with the efforts of Pavel Dyakonov (Moscow) and Stanislav Matveyev (Cheboksary), Russians entered the world upper-freestyle elite. Since then, the Russian upper-community has increased. And the development of this discipline in recent years is associated with the achievements of the Russians. A breakthrough in the development of Uppers in 2010 is associated with the name of Alexander Turlakov (St. Petersburg), who brought the Uppers to a new world level. In recent years, the best freestyler in the world in this discipline is Gleb Karpov (Moscow).

Despite the fact that the Russian freestylers show the highest results in each discipline, the Russians didn’t have any real successes on the world stage in the battles discipline. Nevertheless, Russian freestylers perform well at major international tournaments.

Practically in all large cities of Russia there are football freestyle schools.

• RussiaFF. Football freestyle - training, video, championships, shows (Unsp.) . russiaff.ru. The appeal date is October 1, 2016.