Hello friends, in case you didn't guess, the champion freestyler I mentioned yesterday was Abbas Farid. When I first saw clips of him online I could tell right away that he was going to go places. I'd kept an eye on his website over the years and saw how he developed. It's uncanny, the juggling tricks he does with his two feet most people could never do with their hands. His style and bag of tricks are actually where I got the inspiration for most of my streetball illustrations. Whenever I hit a bump I just ask myself "what would Abbas do?" and before too long the trick is on paper. But I'm not here to talk about the man, I am here to introduce him to my friends on 1UP.
Noe V: Can you tell us how you discovered the sport of football?
Abbas Farid: I discovered the sport in primary school when i was about 7/8 years old, but i only played for fun, cricket was my specialty back then. At 14 i remember watching the Brazilians play in world cup 98 and Ronaldo gave me goose bumps with his skill and how he was destroying opponents, sincethen i wanted to beat players the same way he did and i took football seriously from there.
NV: Who were your favorite teams or players while growing up?
AF: My first team i supported was Liverpool, I don't know why, maybe it was because of Steve McManaman, he was awesome. Then after 98, I became a fan of Ronaldo and started supporting Inter Milan, After Ronaldo's billionth injury I lost hope in supporting teams and just started to watch the top teams like Barcelona, Man-U etc. Now I don't support teams, I just support the sport itself and great teams/players who make the game beautiful.
NV: Did you play for a school team or league before your freestyle exploits?
AF: Yes, at 16 I was a striker for my high school, we only had 3 matches in that year due to bad weather and cancellations, but i scored 5 goals in 3 games, so i was quite happy about that!
NV: How did you discover freestyle football?
AF: The term 'freestyle football' actually started in 2001, before that it was just known as football tricks, so you could say I started 'freestyling' since i was 15. I wanted to learn new skills to impress any football scouts so that I could get promoted into a higher team, unfortunately where I live no scouts ever came, so I never had a chance, my 3 years of solid training felt wasted. In 2001 Nike launched the freestyle campaign and I decided to give it a shot. I surprised myself to getting into the finals twice which boosted my confidence massively, from that event I practiced even harder so that in 2003 I was prepared to win the next competition and fortunately things all went to plan. After winning the competition i decided to take freestyle on as my profession.
NV: If you could put a rough estimate on years / hours spent practicing before the Nike contest how long would you say that was?
AF: Roughly about 4 hours everyday and about 3 years of practice until I won the Nike contest in 2003.
NV: Were you working or going to school when the contest took place?
AF: I was at school, Nobody knew I skipped a day except for my best friend, I came back to school the next day as a winner from the London event and nobody knew what I achieved until they saw me on MTV, which was like 1 month later. A lot of faces changed!
NV: When I closed the previous blog I asked the readers to guess which person in the original Nike / MTV video would go on to be crowned the best freestyler in the UK. Obviously that was you, can you tell us a little about the format and competitors?
AF: It was a unique format, but i'll try my best to explain: In total, there were 4 competitions held in UK, 2 in Manchester and 2 in London, it was an open event for basketball and football freestylers, the winner of each event in Manchester advances into the final, giving a total of 2 winners, the same rule with London, giving 4 winners in total. Each event had about roughly 7,000 freestylers competing and the judging system was very harsh, talent was getting slashed down very quickly so you needed to impress. I enteredthe London event and the competition was tough, many of the freestylers who entered there have turned out to be professional freestylers today! After winning, the 4 winners compete in a tv commercial on MTV, allowing the public to vote by SMS for their favourite freestyler, there is only 1 winner, no 2nd or 3rd place existed, thanks to the people, I was their favourite!
NV: Were you friends or did you make friends with the other freestylers you competed against?
AF: I made friends with them.
NV: What did your friends and family say when you won and had gotten a commercial?
AF: They were happy for me and i remember my brother saying, "you must be grateful to God because this success can go in a snap."
NV: Since then you have gone on to do live freestyle performances all over the world. Can you highlight some of the places you've been to and events you've performed at?
AF: The highlights for me would have to be, performing with Ronaldinho in San Siro, Freestyle tour the cities of Indonesia, My Freestyle competition adventure in Malaysia and the performances in Saudi Arabia, but these are only to list of few.
NV: You are now a part of a select group of athletes that Nike contacts to do commercials or special promotions from time to time. In street circles these are men and women that have reached the peak of their craft. How does it feel being part of this group?
AF: I guess it's a nice feeling to have, but I don't focus on this too much otherwise ego can take over, I've had to work extremely hard to get to where I am today and I'm nowhere near my peak. Any slacking & i guess you could say I'm out of the "circle".
NV: Have you gotten any exclusives that would make sneaker fiends jealous?
AF: I have been given many exclusive things, such as footballs, trainers, shorts, t-shirts, but i'm not sure about the jealousy part, I try not to develop haters around me. Sorry for the boring answer!
AF: Jeon Kwon, John Farnworth and Sean Streetstyle are my favourites at this moment, but in terms of sports stars whom I admire, they are successful champions in their own sports, like Micheal Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Jackie Chan, Romario, Bruce Lee and of course my mum.
NV: Which professional athletes have you met on your travels, which is your most memorable experience?
AF: I have met the De Boer brothers, Edgar Davids, Teddy Sherringham, Cesc Fabregas, but most memorable is Ronaldinho, because he said to me when finishing the show "you best man" (not the best english, but a great compliment).
NV: How much work and preparation does it take to create a freestyle routine? What about staying in shape and training?
AF: It takes a lot of work to create a freestyle routine, to think of your own ideas, master them and then apply into your routine takes a lot of time, it's easy and quick to copy others as it's already been done. Staying in shape will depend on the level of difficulty in your routine and the tricks you pull off, I can safely say that it has come to the stage that I'm having to focus on my diet.
NV: Which is most important to becoming a good freestyler, is it athletic ability, imagination or determination?
AF: Ideally all, but for me it's imagination, this is the reason of freestyle.
NV: People often confuse freestyle with lack of real sporting ability. How much of a threat are you and your colleagues in football, futsal or panna?
AF: I love futsal and I am confident at it, control is my specialty and I love to out do people, kicking or fouling me is pointless because that just makes it easier for me to humiliate you, I can be crafty when i want to. I can also play on the pitch. The misconception of "freestylers can't play on the pitch" has been made up by some random dude and it's a myth.
NV: What's the worst you've ever gotten an opponent in a game, have you really "broken their ankles"
AF: I'm aware the term "ankle breaking" is common in basketball, typically from crossovers. But in football, the only way to break an ankle is to step on them & that's cheap, but I have damaged a lot of defenders, even to the point where they have walked off the pitch with shame during play, I have a lot of stories, but many people will think i'm lying and making stories up.
NV: The culture of freestyle, or for that matter "action sports" like skateboarding, is sometimes used for commercial purposes by those whom do not understand it. A purist would say that freestyle needs to remain on the street, or in underground in order to survive and grow. That they should avoid commercial work for the sake of "keeping it real." At the same time opportunities arise for those that are very good, opportunities that mean a way to provide for themselves and / or the family. Is there a line you have to walk between the street community and the professional world?
AF: Well, from my point of view a true purist will talk with their skill instead of preaching, if you truly love the sport, you will be awesome at it, hence "keepin it real" and offers will come knocking on your door. There's no major line in the underground and the professional world, they both depend on each other, underground keeps it a cool sport and the commercial inspires more people to get into it. It's a growing cycle. Generally you'll find streets are more into combos and technical moves where the professional world is into shows and crowd pleasing moves, I do try my best to balance my image that can fit in both worlds.
NV: How do you deal with the pressures of traveling and competing or performing under less-than-friendly circumstances?
AF: I just practice more.
NV: Do you have any nightmare experiences from the road?
AF: Nothing too bad really. Hectic travel schedules can get tiring and most recently a certain airline from France manage to leave my baggage in Paris on a transfer flight to South Africa, which messed my schedule up a little!
NV: Since this is a videogame community I have to ask the obligatory videogame questions. Do you play videogames and when did you get into them?AF: Yes, my brother used to own a Spectrum, games were made on cassette tapes and each game used to cost £1-2, those were the days! I got hooked into video games when Doom was released in it's original decade, had a 486 pc (before mhz was introduced) and i loved it, iddqd, idkfa, those were the good times.
NV: Any favorite systems or titles?
AF: PC is always the best system, but mainly it's either pro evo or gran turismo.
NV: Any titles you look forward to playing in the new year?
AF: Um... I'm not sure what games are being released next year, but 1 game I am waiting for is Gran Turismo 5 (the version where they promised physical damage on cars) although I'm not sure when they'll release this, but hopefully by next year.
NV: Have you ever been tapped for motion capture sessions for games or animation?
AF: I've not done motion capture yet, closest thing I've done to that is green screen stuff, but I'd love to have the opportunity to do motion capture, I'm really fascinated in these kind of things and keen to do an exceptional job.
NV: What are your plans for the future?
AF: My plans are to push and promote football freestyle, so that it gains more recognition, more respect and more people involved. I believe this is the way forward. I am also working on a few projects myself, but unfortunately I can't reveal too much yet, but you will find out in good time!
NV: Are there any people or companies you'd like to work with?
AF: Always, there are too many out there, so the list would be massive, but as a personal preference, I'd like to work with Nissan, because my favorite car is the Skyline R35! But seriously, there are too many companies to choose from, so this is a tough one i'm afraid!
NV: The freestyle football scene is very thin in the US. We're more about freestyle basketball than anything. Do you have any advice for those budding athletes that want to make a career out of freestyle sports?
AF: Be creative, believe in yourself, respect others and have fun! Keep it real!
NV: Thank you for your time and I wish you all the success in the world!
AF: Thank you very much!
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