Legendary Sean Garnier talks making Freestyle Football an Olympic sport, Neymar and Paul Pogba

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  • Sean Garnier

    There are isolated moments in football when the game feels closer to art than sport.

    Take Lionel Messi for example. The Barcelona icon is idolised, above all else, for his unique individual skill.

    When Messi pirouettes past opponents, leaving residual vapours as he sashays across the pitch, his fluid movement frozen in time would not look out of place in any gallery.

    Indeed, football is a platform for ‘the moment’, it’s what spectators stand to applaud and wait all game for.

    But there is a format in which there is no need for patience. Freestyle Football, which umbrellas various other disciplines like Urbanball, extracts these individual feats of skill and captures minutes, rather than seconds.

    And the Lionel Messi of this art form is two-time Football Freestyle World Champion Sean Garnier. The diminutive Frenchman has amassed an enormous following on social media.

    Over seven million people – whether it be through his 2.6 million YouTube subscribers, 3.3m followers on Instagram or 1.5m Facebook likers – watch the Dubai resident contort challengers and challenges with his unique brand of intoxicating skill.

    Over the last decade, Garnier has propelled the sport to incredible heights, taking him to collaborations with superstars like Neymar, Paul Pogba and Diego Maradona.

    Now, the 34-year-old wants to see Freestyle Football follow Breakdancing, and move from the streets and into the Olympics.

    Sean Garnier

    Sean Garnier

    “It’s really a hope for me to see Freestyle, or as I call it Urbanball, in the Olympics because my goal is to diversify the way of playing football,” he tells Sport360.

    “You have 11-a-side but what are you waiting for during these games? You’re waiting for a nutmeg, a goal and the unique moment of the individual.

    “At the end of the day, we like whoever has won La Liga, but we also like the Ballon d’Or winner.

    “What is the most common question in football? Who is the best, Ronaldo or Messi?

    “We are talking about the individuals, so why not create a freestyle one-on-one competition to diversify the way we promote the sport and also to give the audience a show.

    “Sometimes in 90-minute games, nothing happens, but trust me, three-minutes in freestyle something is going to be crazy.”

    Crazy is the operative word there and it’s also the response Garnier gives when asked about his own personal rise which parallels to the sport.

    His own professional career, with French sides Auxerre and Troyes, was brutally cut short due to persistent injuries. Desperate to find a way of keeping a ball at his feet, Garnier transitioned into the freestyle arena.

    “I was seeing dancers in Paris, they were dancing on the street, so I thought ‘why not dance with the ball?’ he explains.

    “So I started to dance with the ball. Then I saw people playing Futsal, so I thought, ‘why not play Futsal, but with tricks?’

    “I was always trying to keep the ball at my feet and then having this career as a streetballer.”

    The sport has its ignorant detractors with the ill-informed typically reacting to the incredible feats with ‘yeah, but try those tricks in a real game’.

    How sweet it must have been for Garnier when he bamboozled one of the most talented players in the world, Neymar.

    Back in 2011, Garnier featured against the Brazil icon in a friendly Panna game (the aim of which is to nutmeg your opponent) and produced a stunning piece of deception, flicking the ball under his shirt with a confused Neymar searching the open space for possession.

    “I have three moments which are my favourite. The first one was the day I played against Neymar and I put the ball in my t-shirt,” the 34-year-old says.

    “For me it was a bit like revenge against football because it showed that Neymar, one of the most technical players with the ball, can be beaten by someone from the street.

    “It gave a message to the people to trust yourself.

    “The second moment, was performing in front of Maradona. As a child, I always dreamed about Ronaldinho, [Zinedine] Zidane and Maradona. I did a show and during it, I stopped my show and passed him the ball, and he passed it back.

    “That moment will always stay in my head. Then there is a cool moment with my friend Paul Pogba. We were shooting a commercial and during the breaks we started to play together.

    “The people directing, shot the video and were going crazy with that video going viral. It was one of my favourite moments with a footballer.”

    And a message for the sport’s critics?

    “Most of the time, people will say a freestyler can’t play football, which is true because they are two different sports, it’s like you run the 100m and then also the marathon,” he says.

    “But you can also be good at freestyle, and be a good footballer. It’s possible.

    “My ability was to learn every type of football and that’s what brings me to the next level and make me famous.”

    Sean Garnier will be undertaking a special and unique challenge in the UAE during the holy month of Ramadan. The Dubai-resident is aiming to go 50-0 in a game against anyone, anywhere. The rules are very simple, the first player to score three goals wins. But if you nutmeg and score at the same time, you win the game by KO. Will Sean’s 0 go? Keep your eyes peeled on his channels ‘seanfreestyle’ to find out.

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