Increase in Popularity
Freestyle football has existed since the early 1900s, but it has seen a surge in popularity as a result of global advertising campaigns and digital media sharing. In the early 21st century, Nike began an advertising campaign which relied heavily on the freestyle form of football, including video clips of freestyle performances. The videos are called Joga Bonito which means "play Beautifully." These advertisements featured famous players such as Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo and Edgar Davids. Many link such mass media attention to the start of the freestyle craze. In the YouTube era, however, many previously non-famous players have risen to prominence, and internet searches easily yield thousands of videos by amateur "freestylers" around the world.
Some of the more notable freestylers include: Hee Young Woo (Mr. Woo) of South Korea, Pawel Skora (Polish), Michal Rycaj (Polish), Azun (Norwegian), Palle (Swedish), Victor Rubilar, Four time Guinness World Record Holder and John Farnworth, who appeared in Britain's Got Talent in 2009. Moreover, men are not the only ones capable of training this sports discipline. Since it started spreading all over the world more and more women have been taking up freestyle football. Some of the most notable women in the sport are Mélody Donchet and Indi Cowie. Sweden, United Kingdom, Brazil, Japan, France, Hungary, Russia and Poland are considered the best countries in the world regarding freestyle football.
Freestyle has also become very popular in South America, with countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Chile forming freestyle crews of dozens or even hundreds of freestylers, some of the most important Latin Freestylers are Charly Iacono who got to the Semi finals of Talento Argentino, an Argentinian talent show, and Cristian "Rocky" Mayorga who came third in the South Africa 2010 Red Bull Street Style world finals.
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