The Street Skills Bible — The Big Book of Football, Book 13

1 Chapter One

Welcome to the Cage

The best tricks in football weren't born in giant stadiums. They were born in cages, squares, car parks and dusty lanes. Ready for a world tour?

Brazil

The pelada

In Brazil, a kickabout is called a pelada. No fixed rules. No kit, no lines, no offside. You agree everything with your friends: two shoes for goalposts, first to five wins.

The Amazon city of Manaus has run a giant pelada championship, the Peladão, since 1973. More than 500 teams play in it!

Uruguay · 1930

Futsal is born

Futsal began in 1930 in Montevideo. That's the same year, and the same city, as the very first World Cup!

Juan Carlos Ceriani made it up for the indoor courts of the YMCA. Five a side, keeper included. Kick-ins, corners and free kicks must be taken within 4 seconds, and the ref counts them on their fingers.

The Netherlands

Panna Knock-Out

One against one, in a little cage 7 metres across, for 3 minutes. Most goals wins…

…BUT a panna (a nutmeg) wins on the spot. Score ten goals and you can STILL lose! The word comes from Suriname, and is thought to mean "gate". Your legs are the gate.

France

The city stade

French neighbourhoods are full of "city stades": fenced cages with boards round the sides, two small goals and basketball hoops. The very first one was built on Christmas Eve 1990.

Zinedine Zidane grew up on a concrete housing estate in Marseille. Kylian Mbappé and William Saliba both started at the same small club near Paris, AS Bondy.

Nigeria

No boots needed

Jay-Jay Okocha, one of the trickiest players ever, learned on the streets of Enugu, barefoot. He said: "A football was the only toy that we had as a child."

He got his first football boots at about 12, and they felt so strange he had to get used to them!

Spain

Yamal's 304

When Lamine Yamal scores, he makes 304 with his fingers. It's the end of 08304, the postcode of Rocafonda, the neighbourhood near Barcelona where he grew up.

He learned in its square, against older, tougher kids. Now that square has a no-ball-games rule. Imagine!

Cristiano Ronaldo says that as a boy in Portugal, futsal was all he played. In a UEFA booklet he says: "If it wasn't for futsal, I wouldn't be the player I am today." Messi, Neymar and Brazil's Ronaldo say futsal helped make them, too. Tiny pitches make magic feet.

Why tiny pitches make magic feet

Super low!Futsal ball bounceDrop it from 2 metres and it bounces only 50–65 cm. A normal ball bounces back 125–155 cm.

495Touches in 20 minutesTen under-9s played 5-a-side futsal for 20 minutes. Together they touched the ball 495 times, and it was only in play half the time!

2×More actionScientists counted: futsal had more than twice as many actions with the ball per minute as the 2002 men's World Cup.

1 in 5Toe-pokesAbout one futsal shot in five is a toe-poke. In the park that gets you teased. In futsal it's a weapon!

6Futsal World Cups for BrazilA record. The latest was in 2024, when they beat Argentina 2–1 in the final.

Remember Book 4? It said futsal uses a "heavier" ball. True or false?

Half true A futsal ball weighs about the same as a big size-5 football (400–440 g against 410–450 g). But it's smaller, so it's heavy for its size. It's like a football that ate its dinner! It's also specially made to bounce low, so it stays down and sticks to your foot.

Do it this weekend

Steal these street rules

Panna rules: 1 v 1, two tiny goals (shoes are fine), 3 minutes. A nutmeg wins on the spot, but only if you had the ball first and did it on purpose.
Neymar Jr's Five rules: 5 v 5, no goalkeepers, 10 minutes. Every time your team lets in a goal, one of YOUR players has to walk off!
Futsal rule: count 4 seconds on your fingers for every kick-in, corner and free kick. Too slow? Other team's ball.
Pelada rule: agree everything before you start. Then nobody can argue. (They'll argue anyway.)

2 Chapter Two

Street Football, Bengaluru Style

You don't have to fly to Brazil to find street-football legends. Some of the best stories in India are right here in your own city.

Near Trinity Circle

Bengaluru's mini Brazil

Near Trinity Circle there's a small neighbourhood called Gowthampura. Its nickname? Mini Brazil. A statue of Pelé stands at its entrance, and its lane pitch is called the "Maracanã Stadium", after Brazil's most famous ground.

Every World Cup, the whole street turns yellow and green for Brazil. And the kids? They head to the ground the minute school ends.

"Mini Brazil" covers Gowthampura, Austin Town and Murphy Town. Local tournaments there have had prize money of up to ₹1 lakh.

Austin Town · December 2025

The ground that fought back

Austin Town is called the birthplace of football in Bangalore. Its Nandan Ground is about 100 years old, and Olympic footballers learned to play there.

In December 2025 there was a plan to turn it into a turf stadium. Local players worried they'd have to PAY to play there, and be locked out. So they protested. On 13 December 2025 the plan was dropped. The ground stays free for everyone.

It's named after a goalkeeper, P.K. Nandan. Next time you pass Austin Town, wave at it.

The first goal India's football team ever scored as a free country? A Bengaluru boy got it! Sarangapani Raman, born in Bangalore in 1920 and nicknamed "The Flying Arrow", played on the Nandan Ground. At the 1948 London Olympics he scored against France in the 70th minute. India lost 2–1, but Raman had made history.

Street football all over India

~60 yearsBengaluru's barefoot cupThe Independence Cup, around 15 August: 7-a-side, NO boots. In 2016 it had been running for about 60 years. (Only ever play barefoot on safe, clean grass!)

100 mKolkata's "FIFA Gully"A lane in Beniatola covered in football murals and giant cut-outs for every World Cup since 2014. The neighbours paint it themselves.

500+Kolkata para clubs"Para" means neighbourhood in Bengali. Over 500 neighbourhood clubs have played in one police cup.

1 bucketHow Slum Soccer beganIn Nagpur in 2001, a teacher, Vijay Barse, saw kids in the rain playing football with a plastic bucket instead of a ball. Now Slum Soccer picks India's teams for the Homeless World Cup, a World Cup for people without a home.

7thIndia's women, 2025At the Homeless World Cup in Oslo: 7th out of 24 teams. India's men came 15th of 48.

Age 4AIFF Blue CubsIndia's football leagues for little kids aged 4 to 12, with tiny games from 2-v-2 up to 7-v-7, so everyone gets loads of touches.

Do it now

The tennis-ball minute

Aditya Srikakulam from Bengaluru loves football, but a knee condition stopped him playing it. So he started juggling a tennis ball, and practised and practised… until he set a Guinness World Record: 258 tennis-ball touches with his feet in one minute (2023). In 2024 he set another one, with his shins!

Grab a tennis ball (or any ball). Press start. Touch it with your feet as many times as you can, and let it bounce if you need to. Count out loud!

60

Bonus: Lamine Yamal's goal celebration is his postcode. What would YOUR Bengaluru PIN-code celebration look like? Invent it, then practise it (you'll need it).

3 Chapter Three

Level 1: Ball Mastery

Every fancy trick is built from small, boring-looking touches. Master these four and Levels 2, 3 and 4 get WAY easier.

The Netherlands · coach Wiel Coerver

The coach who copied Pelé

Dutch coach Wiel Coerver won the UEFA Cup with Feyenoord in 1974. Then he did something clever. He studied videotapes of great players like Pelé and turned their moves into practice drills, step by step.

His big idea: skill isn't only something you're born with. It can be taught. And it starts at the bottom of a pyramid.

Kids in more than 50 countries do Coerver drills. This book's Levels 1 → 4 climb the same way: basics first, fireworks later.

Toe Taps Level 1

Tap-tap-tap the TOP of the ball with the bottom of your toes, swapping feet like you're running on the spot. The ball should hardly move. Then do it looking UP.

Sole Rolls Level 1

Roll the ball across your body with your sole, stop it with your other sole, roll it back. In one study, a top futsal team stopped the ball with their sole about 3 times out of 4!

Inside–Outside Taps Level 1

The outside of your foot taps the ball out, the inside taps it back. Out-in, out-in, like a windscreen wiper. 20 on each foot.

Keepy-Uppies Level 1

Drop, kick, catch. Then drop, kick, kick, catch. Lock your ankle, toes up a little, and kick only to your waist. Beat yesterday's number.

Ball-mastery world records

402Toe taps (sole touches) in 1 minuteYuuki Yoshinaga, Japan, 2018. Nearly 7 every second!

363Touches in 1 minuteJang Woo-sung, South Korea, 2025. About 6 every second.

28 hrs 21 minKeepy-uppy marathonDaniel Yaakob, Sweden, 2025. He started at 4 a.m. and was allowed a 15-minute break every 3 hours.

21 hrs 1 minWith NO breaksAbraham Muñoz, Mexico, 2010. To rest his legs he balanced the ball on the back of his neck!

10 hrs 22 minWomen's no-breaks recordRaquel Benetti, Brazil. She got the idea watching a record on TV when she was SIX.

42 kmA marathon, jugglingMuñoz juggled a ball for the whole Mexico City Marathon in 2016, and lost control only 4 times.

One of the greatest players ever did keepy-uppies to pop music with his laces UNDONE. Before a big European semi-final in 1989, Diego Maradona warmed up by juggling the ball with his feet, knees, shoulders and head to a song called "Live is Life". The clip became one of football's first viral videos. Warm-ups can be fun!

Do it now

The 1-minute toe-tap test

Ball in front of you, press start, and toe-tap for one whole minute. Count out loud (or get a grown-up to count). Get a grown-up to write your number down. Then test yourself again on Day 18 and Day 29 of the 30-Day Challenge. Faster?

60

Keep going and it adds up. In 2020 a young footballer, Imogen Papworth-Heidel, did 1,123,586 keepy-uppies in 195 days, to say thank you to the doctors, nurses and helpers who kept working through COVID. That's nearly 6,000 a day, and over a MILLION in all!

4 Chapter Four

Level 2: Beat Your Player

A defender is standing in your way. You have one ball, two feet and one big idea: tell a little football fib.

Step-Over Level 2

Swing your foot over the ball without touching it, then go the OTHER way. Brazilians call it the pedalada: your feet pedal like you're riding an invisible bicycle.

Over 100 years old! Argentina's Pedro Calomino is said to have done it in the 1910s. Brazil's Ronaldo made it world-famous in the 1990s.

Cruyff Turn Level 2

Pretend to kick, drag the ball BEHIND your standing leg, spin away. Fake, hide, go!

Made famous by Johan Cruyff at the 1974 World Cup (more about that below).

V-Move Level 2

Sole on the ball, pull it back towards you, then push it forward at a slant. The ball's path draws a V. Football is secretly handwriting with your feet!

In 1953 Hungary's Ferenc Puskás did the most famous drag-back ever at Wembley. England's captain lunged in and missed, and Hungary won 6–3.

La Croqueta Level 2

A lightning-quick tap from one foot to the other, then forward. Left-right-GONE. It's Spanish for "the croquette", a fried snack. Why? Nobody is quite sure!

Andrés Iniesta learned it from his hero, Michael Laudrup.

The Matthews Level 2

Your body says LEFT, your foot says RIGHT. Push, hop, take! The defender believes your body. Gotcha.

Sir Stanley Matthews, "the Wizard of Dribble", won the very first Ballon d'Or in 1956, and played top-level football until he was 50!

Ronaldo Chop Level 2

Step past the ball, then chop it sideways BEHIND your standing leg with your other foot. The defender runs straight past, like a karate chop!

A favourite of a young Cristiano Ronaldo, along with his step-overs.

1974

The defender who laughed

World Cup · Dortmund · Netherlands 0⁠–⁠0 Sweden

Johan Cruyff was near the corner of the box. Sweden's defender Jan Olsson was stuck to him like glue. Cruyff pretended to cross…

Olsson went for the fake. Cruyff dragged the ball behind his leg, spun, and was gone. The whole world was watching on TV.

Was Olsson upset? No! Years later he said: "I laughed then and I laugh now." Being a good sport is a skill too.

Does it still work? YES! In 2016, Wales striker Hal Robson-Kanu fooled three Belgium defenders with one Cruyff turn, then scored in a Euro quarter-final. (Who REALLY invented it? Tap the myths in Chapter 6!)

Brazil · World Cup 1962

The little bird with the bendy legs

Garrincha was born with his right leg 6 cm shorter than his left, and both legs bent. It didn't slow him down one bit. Defenders often knew which way he'd go, and they STILL couldn't stop him.

His name means "wren", a small bird. His favourite trick: stop, freeze the defender, fake one way, then burst past on the outside. Again. And again.

In 1962 he won the World Cup. He was also named the best player of the tournament, AND he was one of its top scorers!

Ten tries. Ten wins. Against BRAZIL. At the 2018 World Cup, Belgium's Eden Hazard tried 10 dribbles against Brazil and every single one worked. Ten out of ten: a perfect score!

Play it tonight

The "Be the Defender" game

Get a grown-up to be the defender. They must try to stay in front of the ball. You use only Level 2 tricks.

1 point if they lean the wrong way.
3 points if you get past with the ball.
First to 10 wins. Then swap!

Coaches' secret: the burst of speed after the fake matters as much as the fake itself. Fake… then ZOOM.

5 Chapter Five

Level 3: Show-off

These are the tricks that make a whole crowd go "OOOOH". They're hard. You'll fail lots. That's half the fun.

Elastico Level 3

Push the ball out with the outside of your foot, then SNAP it back with the inside, without your foot ever leaving the ball. "Elástico" means rubber band.

Credited to Sérgio Echigo, a Brazilian with a Japanese family name, who showed it to his teammate Rivellino in 1964. Rivellino showed the world at the 1970 World Cup.

Double Step-Over Level 3

Two step-overs in a row, one with each foot. One fake confuses a defender. Two make them dizzy!

Cristiano Ronaldo became famous for strings of super-fast step-overs.

Roulette Level 3

Stop, drag, spin, drag, GO! A full 360° turn with the ball glued to your soles, and your back shielding it from the defender. Ballerina footballer!

Also called the Marseille turn or the Zidane turn. Maradona, Laudrup and Zidane made it famous, but nobody knows who did it first.

Rabona Level 3

Kick with your leg crossed BEHIND your standing leg. In Argentine slang, "hacerse la rabona" means to skip school. Your leg sneaks round the back like it's bunking off!

Ricardo Infante scored the first goal ever CALLED a rabona, in 1948. Erik Lamela's rabona won the 2021 Puskás Award for the best goal on the planet.

Around the World Level 3

Kick the ball up softly and circle your foot all the way round it before it drops. Your foot does a lap of the ball, like the Moon going round the Earth.

The record is 112 in a row, by Italy's Alessandro Cadei in 2019. Most people are thrilled to do ONE.

The cheekiest trick of all

How to nutmeg

Watch the defender's FEET, not their face.
Wait for them to step forward or spread their legs to block. (A fake pass often opens the gate!)
Poke the ball quickly through the gap with the inside or toe of your foot.
Run AROUND them (not through them!) and collect it behind.

A nutmeg is a trick, not an insult. Celebrate politely, and never shove the player you nutmegged. If a game says the nutmegged player gets pushed or hit, don't play it. That's not football.

Why is it called a nutmeg? Nobody knows! Even a top word expert calls it "a real puzzle". Can YOU think of a reason?

Nutmeg around the world (tap a flag)

🇫🇷 France

petit pont

"Little bridge". Next time you do one, shout "PETIT PONT!"

🇪🇸 In Spanish

caño · túnel

"Pipe" or "tunnel". The ball goes through the tunnel!

🇧🇷 Brazil

caneta

"Pen". Yes, like the one you write with!

🇩🇪 Germany

Tunnel · Beinschuss

"Tunnel", or "leg-shot".

🇳🇱 Netherlands

panna

Thought to mean "gate" in Sranan Tongo, a language from Suriname.

🇮🇹 Italy

tunnel

Same as Germany and Scandinavia. Everybody agrees: it's a tunnel!

The man credited with the elastico taught half a million kids. Sérgio Echigo moved to Japan in 1972. From 1978 he ran more than 1,000 children's football clinics over 25 years, coaching more than 500,000 kids. That's more children than live in some whole cities! In 2023 he joined Japan's Football Hall of Fame.

Remember Book 4? "Ronaldinho invented his elastico on a futsal court." True or false?

False The elastico was around in the 1960s, and Ronaldinho was born in 1980. He made it famous all over again, so famous that in Nigeria they call it "the Gaúcho", after his nickname. But Echigo and Rivellino got there first.

6 Chapter Six

Level 4: Legends' Specials

Five moves so famous that each one belongs to a legend. Learn the story first. Then, carefully, learn the move.

The Panenka Level 4

Run up like you'll blast it, then chip the penalty softly down the middle as the keeper dives. Fake a rocket, kick a feather.

Rainbow Flick Level 4

Roll the ball up the back of your heel, then flick it over your head (and the defender's). In Germany it's called the Okocha-Trick.

Sombrero Flick Level 4

Pop the ball over a defender's head like putting a hat on them, then nip round and catch it before it bounces.

No-Look Pass Level 4

Look one way, pass the other. Your eyes tell a fib; your foot tells the truth. Ronaldinho's favourite.

Scorpion Kick Level 4

Dive forwards, arch your back and kick the ball away with your heels, over your head. Crash mat (or a mattress on the FLOOR) plus a grown-up, or no scorpion!

1976

The penalty invented for chocolate

Euro final · Belgrade · Czechoslovakia 2⁠–⁠2 West Germany (5⁠–⁠3 on penalties)

After training in Prague, Antonín Panenka took penalties against his club's goalkeeper, Zdeněk Hruška. They made bets: chocolate or a little money on whether Panenka could score five out of five. Hruška kept winning.

So Panenka had an idea. Keepers wait till the last moment, then dive, and they can't turn back in mid-air. What if he chipped it softly down the middle? It worked. He said later: "The good thing was I started to win the bets, but I also started to put on weight."

He practised it for two years. Then, with the last kick of the 1976 final, West Germany's keeper Sepp Maier dived to his left… and the ball floated gently into the middle. Czechoslovakia were champions of Europe! Today a "panenka" means a chipped penalty, all over the world.

Even legends get it wrong: Lionel Messi tried one in a 2024 Copa América shootout and hit the crossbar. (Argentina still won.)

1995

The scorpion at Wembley

Friendly · England 0–0 Colombia

A looping ball came towards Colombia's goalkeeper, René Higuita. He dived forwards, arched his back like a scorpion, and kicked the ball away with both heels over his head.

Where did he get the idea? From kids! He said: "Children have always been my inspiration. I always saw them in the street or in a park trying out bicycle kicks, and I told them it would be good to do it in reverse."

They called him "El Loco" (the Madman), because he dribbled out of his goal and took free kicks and penalties. He scored more than 40 goals. As a goalkeeper! And in 2017, Olivier Giroud won the Puskás Award for a scorpion-kick goal for Arsenal.

⚠️ Safety first: scorpions and bicycle kicks mean landing on your hands, chest or back. Only ever try them on a crash mat or a mattress on the floor, with a grown-up. Never on hard ground. Learn to fall first (Chapter 7 shows you how).

⚡ Three more legends' moments

Okocha, 1993: Jay-Jay Okocha dribbled past the great goalkeeper Oliver Kahn and several defenders, some of them TWICE, then scored. It was Germany's Goal of the Year. In 2016, Kahn joked online that he was still dizzy. Almost ten years later, at Bolton, Okocha flicked a rainbow over Arsenal's Ray Parlour. "It was something I perfected," he said.

Pelé, 1958: in the World Cup final, a 17-year-old Pelé popped the ball over a Swedish defender's head (a sombrero!) then smashed it past the goalkeeper. He's still the youngest player ever to score in a World Cup final. He was 17. You're 7. Ten years to go.

Ronaldinho, 2005: he scored twice at Real Madrid's own stadium, with step-overs, flicks and a pass to Samuel Eto'o while looking the other way. Parts of the Real Madrid crowd stood up and clapped him. "It was a perfect game," he said.

Count to ten out loud. That's how long the "Goal of the Century" took. Remember Maradona's famous goal from Book 2? In 1986 he picked up the ball in his own half, ran past five England players including the goalkeeper, and scored. Fans voted it the best goal of the whole 20th century. Then, in 2007, a 19-year-old Lionel Messi scored an almost identical goal for Barcelona!

Myth-buster: who REALLY invented it?

Remember Book 2? It said Cruyff invented the Cruyff turn.

Not quite Pelé did the same trick in 1960. Cruyff made it famous on TV in 1974, so it got his name.

Michael Laudrup invented the "Laudrup feint" (the roulette).

False Danish fact-checkers say he didn't. Nobody knows who did the roulette first.

Ricardo Infante invented the rabona.

Not proven In 2014 even FIFA called him its inventor! But his 1948 goal is only the first one ever CALLED a rabona. Nobody filmed it, and one historian thinks players did the same kick even earlier. Pelé did the first rabona caught on film, in 1957.

Panenka really invented the Panenka.

True He planned it and practised it for two years. He reckons he took about 30 penalties that way, and missed just once.

Higuita invented the scorpion kick.

Probably He's reported to have invented it, inspired by kids messing about in the park. So your silly ideas might be genius too.

The lesson? Tricks get named after whoever makes them famous. So if you invent one… get it on video!

7 Chapter Seven

Practise Like a Pro

Scientists have studied how footballers get good. Their answers are surprising, and brilliant news for a 7-year-old.

🎯

Practise your WORST thing

Playing is fun, so keep playing! But scientists say one really useful kind of practice is picking one weak skill and working on it, thinking hard. They call it deliberate practice.

Try it: 50 weak-foot passes at a wall. How many hit your target?

🦶

Train both feet

At the 1998 World Cup, scientists watched 236 players. About 79% were right-footed, and hardly any used both feet. The surprise? When they DID use their weaker foot, they were just as good with it. Your weak foot isn't hopeless. It's just lazy!

📅

Little and often

In Portugal, 50 young players (about 9 years old) trained their weaker foot for 4 months, and then used it much more in games. When the training stopped, some of the gain slipped away. So keep going: a little bit EVERY day.

😴

Then go to bed!

In one study, grown-ups practised a finger-tapping pattern. After a night's sleep they were 20% faster at it. Staying awake for the same amount of time didn't help. Scientists think your brain keeps practising while you sleep!

Starting at 7? You're right on time. In 2016, scientists put lots of sports studies together. The athletes who reached the very top had NOT started their sport any younger than everyone else. There's no magic number of hours, either. Practice makes you better. Not perfect: better!

The secret warm-up

The warm-up that nearly halves injuries

FIFA made a warm-up just for kids aged 7 to 13, called FIFA 11+ Kids. It takes 15–20 minutes. Do it at the start of training, at least twice a week. The 7 exercises always go in this order:

"Alertness" running game
Skating jumps
Single-leg stance
Press-ups
Single-leg jumps
Spiderman (yes, really!)
Sideways roll

A big trial followed 3,895 young players for a whole season. Teams that did FIFA 11+ Kids had 48% fewer injuries, and 74% fewer bad ones. That's about HALF the injuries, gone.

Each exercise has 5 levels. Start at level 1 and never skip a level. Ask your coach if your team does it.

Learn it today

Fall like a hedgehog 🦔

Before you ever try a scorpion or a bicycle kick, learn to fall safely. This is the last exercise in FIFA 11+ Kids, the sideways roll. Practise on grass or a mat:

Make yourself small and round, like a ball.
Roll over the arm that's in front. Keep both arms a little bent.
Roll across your back, from one shoulder to the other hip.
Never let your head touch the ground.
Now try it the other way!

Learn to fall… before you fly.

Rules for street players

Feet first, heads later

Football's law-makers, the IFAB, have approved trials that ban heading the ball on purpose in matches for under-12s, to protect young heads. So at your age, the coolest skills are with your FEET.

Johan Cruyff's foundation builds little community pitches called Cruyff Courts. Every one has a sign with Cruyff's 14 rules, about things like respect, teamwork and being creative. Good teammates make football way more fun.

8 Chapter Eight

Skill School

Twenty tricks, drawn from above, like a bird watching your feet. Pick a level, pick a trick, press ▶ Play. Then copy the boots!

Left boot (L) Right boot (R) Ball Where it moves Faded boot = resting

Tricks that fly UP in the air (keepy-uppies, around the world, rainbow, sombrero, scorpion) are hard to see from above. A bird can't see how high you jump! For those ones, read the words too.

Every trick is drawn for a RIGHT-footer. Left-footer? Swap L and R. Right-footer? Try it lefty too. That's how you get two good feet!

The 30-Day Skill Challenge

One small task a day, about ten minutes. Tap a day when you've done it and it gets a ✅ and a bright green border. This page remembers, even if you close it!

🖨️ Print your practice cards (PDF)

One card for each of the 20 tricks, four on a page, plus a 30-Day Challenge tracker to colour in. Stick them on the fridge and tick a box every time you practise.

9 Final Whistle

The Street Skills Quiz

Ten questions. Every answer is somewhere in this book. Get them all and you're a Street Legend.