The world’s best football freestylers will be on show this weekend at Red Bull Street Style – the freestyle football World Finals in Pula, Croatia.
Finalists will go head to head in front of an expert judging panel, in a one-versus-one format of the best technical skill and creativity that lasts for three minutes.
Each freestyler takes turns performing tricks for 30 seconds and the judges pick their winner based on the criteria of difficulty, originality, execution, performance and overall.
This year’s competition has a new format, with countries selecting their best athletes through online national qualifiers, including a Rest of the World qualifier for countries with smaller freestyle communities.
As well as the quite ridiculous tricks, here are three other things to watch out for in Saturday’s world finals.
1. Norway’s finest
Manchester City’s Erling Haaland may be regarded as the world’s finest goalscorer right now, but have you heard of the other Norwegian footballing great, Erlend Fagerli?
Fagerli is considered to be one of the ‘GOATS’ (greatest of all time) of freestyle football, and for good reason – this year, he could become the first man to win the tournament three times and secure that legacy.
Fagerli’s in great form. He says last year’s world finals, which he won, were “probably [his] best performance ever.” And he’s determined to defend that title.
What makes 2022’s event even more special for the 25-year-old is the fact that his elder brother Brynjar, who inspired Erlend to take up the sport, will retire after the competition.
Brynjar, 28, known for his fast-flowing spinning uppers and handstand control, was inspired by freestyling legend Soufiane Touzani – so the bar was always going to be high.
2. British hope Lia Lewis
This year marks the 10th anniversary of women’s participation in the world finals, and there’s a lot to look out for.
This year’s women’s competition is open to anyone. It’s the first world finals since 2012 without freestyle legend, France’s Melody Donchet. But the 2018 world champion Aguska Mnich of Poland is in fine form heading into the competition after winning the 2020, 2021 and 2022 Super Ball event.
Great Britain’s Lia Lewis, who spent 18 years of her life as a ballet dancer and hadn’t kicked a ball until four years ago, was a surprise winner at the 2021 World Finals and could do it all over again this year.
And US Open champion Caitlyn Schrepfer impressed in the North America qualifiers too. So we could see a newcomer in the women’s event.
Next year’s 2023 event will include an even split of 16 male and 16 female competitors for the first time.
3. Going global
Sixteen men and eight women have qualified for Saturday’s finals. There were more entrants from the Middle East in the 2021 women’s competition of Street Style than any other region in the world.
The new format for the world finals means for the first time, there are freestylers from five global regions, North and South America, Africa, Asia-Pacific and Europe.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, freestyle football has grown at a rapid rate and continues to grow via social media, all over the world.
The Pula Arena is Croatia’s best-preserved ancient monument. More than 2,000 years ago, the Roman arena was home to medieval tournaments and gladiator battles. It is the only Roman amphitheatre left in the world to have all four side towers entirely preserved, and it was built between 27 BC and AD 68.
Just a little bit older than the sport of freestyle football, then, which is said to have originated in south-east Asia around 2,000 years ago
