Začátky Českého freestyle fotbalu

We can consider beginning of Czech scene as foundation of CFFA back on November 2008 but there were almost 3 years of development before this date. It would be big mistake if world doesn’t know about it so we are going back in time and reminding everyone good old time.

It took a while before this tremendous sport came to our republic. Since its beginning around the celebration of new millennium have passed 6 years before few people started to be interested in keeping the ball up. Legends like Palle, Daniel Rooseboom, Nam the Man, Abbas Farid or Touzani were hidden in shade of football player performing simple tricks during half breaks of matches but community was growing up really fast. Soon they started to influence young people to start thinking more than just who to pass the ball to.

All legends in one DVD

Prehistoric period

First person ever practicing on his backyard was legend Jan Krepl from Vsetín. He still remembers the time when FSE brand was popular and how he trained hard every day. His style and tricks have been admired around the globe until now. Second person came while after Jan. He was from around the Prague and his name was Marek Musílek better known as Jeff. This guy was more into uppers and sitdowns so he was completely different from Jan. Anyway he kept to train and perform on various events together with other players but in the middle of 2011 he stopped. It is one of the hardest decisions in life of freestyler when he has to decide if train or get a job and have normal life. He had decided to go other way then others. None of those guys actually weren’t that much into making this sport more popular and spread it out. But then freestyle football was discovered by another person who changed the history of this sport and influenced its evolution not only nationally but also world-wise. This person was Lucaso from Liberec.

Jan

Lucaso and his work

Before Lucaso discovered pure form of freestyle football he was into classic football. He loved it so much that he wanted to be the best of all. This dream was slowly disappearing due to serious injuries but thanks to them he had time to discover much better sport. First year he was more into simple tricks performed during football match. This period of time couldn’t be recognized as his start which came after he first saw Touzani’s video. Since 2006 he started to train hard and always wanted to know as many trick possible. Soon he met with Jan and they made few videos together. They were improving together and started to be interested in community much more. That was the time when they started to perform on various events and tried to get freestyle football among people.

Lucaso visited Jan

Ground breaker

The real breaker came on the biggest freestyle football event of that time in Wien on Eurobac 2007. Lucaso and Jan went there together to check out legends like Palle, Séan, Fx, Szymo, Mr. Woo, Farnworth nebo Touzani. On that place Lucaso got so excited he had decided he wants to accomplish big things in this sport. He has been working on it since then.

Eurobac 2007

Newcomers

2008 was year of young freestylers. Brand new faces around were discovered and stepped up into freestyle football such as Jeza from Halenkovice, or Styx from Jihlava.  During that time freestyle football was discovered by another person who plays important role in its modern age: Kari from Martínkov.

The biggest deal of this year was meeting of Lucaso and Vasek Klouda (7times world champion of footbag) considered as meeting of two sports. There Lucaso get to know new possibilities and found new friends who he is still working with such as Dexter (godfather of all freestyle sports in Czech) or Honza Weber (3times world champion of footbag). Together they had an idea to create official association which can be used to organize tournaments. That time they hadn’t have a clue how far they could come.

Vasek and Honza Footbag in Prague

Foundation of CFFA

November 2008 will be always written in history books as the point of time when Freestyle Football changed its position among other sports. First ever association officially approved by government was founded to organize tournaments. Director Lucaso together with vice-directors Vasek and Dexter immediately started to work on Czech championships. Their work was supported by Red Bull who brought Freestyle Football into world of marketing with their Red Bull Street Style tournament. Their events got much more popularity then any other but they missed one important thing: Spirit of community. Anyway they helped this sport to be recognized by many people and media.

Red Bull Street Style 2008

First national tournament

Since then CFFA’s activity has been focused mainly on tournament organizing. They started with partnership with Red Bull and City Park Jihlava shopping center. They mane first ever official Czech Cup on 2009 which was big success. It was big enough to keep this tournament as tradition for next 4 years. This tournament was the first meeting of all players and battle competition format was introduced to most of them. Vasek Klouda won with his footbag moves, followed by Metoditos and Jan Krepl.

Czech Cup 2009

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International tournaments launching

Since 2009 Prague became the center of freestylers attention from all over the world. And everything began so furtively.

2009 – First tournament ever was Grand Prix of Prague which was supposed to be Open Czech Championship. It meant everyone could enter but the title was given only to a Czech citizen. As more than 20 players from Poland, Hungary or Sweden appeared it was clear we had to evolve to something bigger. To the classic scheme of Freestyle Battle competition Routine was added and also this was the year when Sick Three competition started.This one in particular became very popular and was used many times in other championships around the world. The idea came from Footbag. Tournament had around 50 participants from Czech republic and abroad.

Freestyle Battle                   Freestyle Routines              Sick Three

1. Skora (Poland)                  1. PWG (Sweden)                  1. Zegan (Poland)

2. PWG (Sweden)                  2. Skora (Poland)

3. Metoditos (Slovakia)         3. Gustav (Sweden)

2010 -  Things started to be bigger than we thought so we decided we had to make it bigger. As there was no official European Championship we  decided to make it open. Organization was done with the help of friendly contacts and a team was formed (Lucaso, Dexter, Honza, Dan) as well as media. Lucaso became main director (players, system, pre-production), Dexter with Dan became production managers (money, venue, contacts), Honza Weber took media and with the help of our main graphic designer Dave (website, posters, logo) we made a perfect team to make it happen. Expenses were covered from the budget of CFFA which was collected throughout the year and stuff we got from sponsors for free served as prizes. This amazing tournament had 108 participants and became the biggest event ever.

Freestyle Battle                   Freestyle Routines              Sick Three

1. Luki (Poland)                    1. Skora (Poland)                  1. Rocco (Hungary)

2. Clyde (Poland)                  2. Clyde (Poland)                  2. Skora (Poland)

3. Arthur (Brazil)                  3.PWG (Sweden)                   3. Michryc (Poland)

2011 – Due to the popularity of the 2010 event all of players were asking about next year so we couldn’t disappoint them. With CALD (Czech frisbee association) we put out powers together and created an unique event: World Freestyle Football and Frisbee Championships. We were players outselves who came to organization so we already knew what everyone loves about events and tried to provide as much as we could. That’s why we brought Dj Skodiss into our team to play as freestyle requests. New competition Double Routine was discovered here and also we let soft side of our sport show up with the first ever Female Battle. With 128 participants from 34 countries we became bigger than last year and again the biggest in the world.

Freestyle Battle                   Freestyle Routines              Sick Three

1. Szymo (Poland)                 1. Clyde (Poland)                  1. Skora (Poland)

2. Skora (Poland)                  2. Wass (Algeria)                   2. Zegan (Poland)

3. Andrew (UK)                     3.Florescu (Romania)             3. Michryc (Poland)

Double Routines                              Female Battle

1. Gautier & Clem (France)              1. Kitti (Hungary)

2. Szymo & Clyde (Poland)              2. Melody (France)

3. Andreas & Melody (France)          3. Laura & Lucia (Italy, Slovakia)

2012 – This year was ground breaking in terms of name. Lucaso wanted to create a concept which will be remembered for long time. So he invented name which is term for the biggest meeting on the world, Super ball. Finally Prague tournament got its own trademark and could be recognized all over the world. More than 160 players came together to enjoy the time and discover secrets of wonderful city of Prague which remained hidden for 3 years in a row. New players met their idols and the best players battled among each other to produce the champion. Also this was the year when new competition Challenge and Show flow were invented.

This was the first year when CFFA officially cooperated with Freestyle Football Federation (F3). This year F3 introduced World point ranking which offered players to gain points on tournaments around the world. Top players who gain the biggest amount of points became part of Formula-1 type competitions called World Tour. And most points could be got on Super Ball so players were taking it seriously. This tournament was huge success and everyone started already planning their trips for next year.

Freestyle Battle                   Freestyle Routines              Sick Three

1. Andrew (UK)                     1. Gautier (France)               1. Tobias (Norway)

2. Michryc (Poland)              2. Wass (Algeria)                   2. ARS (Russia)

3. Gunther (Italy)                  3.Luki (Poland)                     3. Mirko (Italy)

Double Routines                              Female Battle

1. Gautier & Clem (France)              1. Lucia (Slovakia)

2. Andréas & Bencock (France)       2. Laura (Italy)

3. Kari & Mira (Czech Republic)      3. Krystína (Czech Republic)

2013 – Sorry guys, we are not able to check future yet.