The Rapid Rise of Freestyle Football
Freestyle football is an acrobatic new phenomenon that takes football to a new level, and Nick Seyda is a young American hoping to battle it out.
Image Credit: Nick Seyda
Nick Seyda is an award-winning freestyle footballer based out of New York. Although just 19, Nick has seen a meteoric rise of this artistic sport, and travels the world competing in acrobatic battles and showcases.
In an exclusive interview with SportsBoom, Nick talks about the dynamics of this new ballet, how it works, and why he gave up on traditional football to pursue FSF.
The Art of Freestyle Football
Freestyle football (FSF) is more circus and dance than regular soccer, according to New York's Nick Seyda. The 19-year-old award-winning FSF player says the sport combines tricks and ball control skills from various disciplines. "Freestyle football is essentially tricks and dance with a ball. You can imagine how circus artists balance the ball. You can imagine how dancers do movements, how acrobats do flips...and then combine that with the basics of soccer or football, ball control, maybe bouncing on your head, all these elements from all these sports combined altogether with the ball."
Competitors often 'battle' each other in 60 second challenges to see who has the best tricks, as judged by a trio of peers and pros.
Thanks to social media, Freestyle Football has seen a major boost in the past few years, as well as a migration of regular football players to this new discipline. 
Not Just "Soccer Tricks"
Seyda is keen to point out that FSF is its own distinct sport and not just showing off soccer skills. "It's one of the biggest misconceptions that it doesn't exist on its own as a real sport...We're not footballers. We're not just dancers. We kind of combined everything altogether. And freestyle exists on its own as a sport." He says some of the best freestylers actually come from dance or ballet, rather than soccer backgrounds.
With FSF, the chore for the artists is to score as many points as possible in the 60 seconds to the judges to demonstrate originality, flexibility, as well as their response to the dance of their foe.
Freestyle football is kind of like those early '8 Mile' rap battles that Eminem once sprouted from.
We're not footballers. We're not just dancers. We kind of combined everything altogether.
How freestyle has become its own sport
Giving Up "Regular" Football
Although FSF originated from soccer players doing tricks in commercials, Seyda says he gave up playing competitive youth soccer as soon as he discovered freestyle in his early teens. "As soon as I found freestyle, I kind of dropped everything. I played baseball and basketball growing up, then I found soccer and dropped those two and focused on soccer for a couple years. And I was at a competitive level for my age group, but as soon as I found freestyle, I kind of dropped everything there."
Seyda isn't the only one, and he's seen a rise in the number of former football players around the globe who have found new purpose with the ball.
A Sport on the Rise
FSF competitions and organisations are growing rapidly across the world. Seyda says the World Freestyle Football Association has helped establish national federations and infrastructure to make FSF a legitimate sport in dozens of countries. The top event is the Super Ball World Championships held each summer in the Czech Republic, which Seyda calls "the heart of the community" and the competition every freestyler dreams of attending. He believes FSF's inclusion in major events like the X Games or Olympics would take it to the next level. But for now, the focus is on growing the sport from the grassroots up. "If you're a young freestyler, a freestyler of any age, if you're just beginning you, you've never come into the sport at a better time. The infrastructure is here, and it's only getting better.”
As freestyle football continues to grow around the world, we look forward to seeing the new personalities of the sport emerge, and push the acrobatic and ballet nature of FSF to new levels. Nick Seyda will be competing in SuperBall in Prague this August.
For more information on this unique event, just click here: https://www.superball.world/
Wade McElwain is our Mr. NFL, a bona fide North American sports nut who knows about NBA, NHL, MLB, PGA plus MMA boxing and more. Originally from Canada, Wade is also an international award-winning stand-up comedian; host of numerous TV game shows; and a TV producer & writer. He also runs NFL in London-the largest NFL fan group in Europe, and has hosted NFL events at Wembley and around the world. Yes, he lives alone and does nothing but watch sports.