What I Learned After Landing My First Around the World

The around the world is one of the most notable tricks and plays a major roll in freestyle football

Although an easy skill in freestyle football, the around the world can be very difficult to learn for non-footballers and takes time and patience

JUGGLING IS THE TECHNIQUE OF KEEPING THE BALL UP IN THE AIR

As a youth player I got hooked on juggling the way kids are now hooked on fortnite, and at age 11 began obsessed over controlling the ball.

Therein lies the difference. Obsession.

Hundreds ask me how to do skills or learn tricks, but I wonder how many have the real determination to sit with something failing repeatedly for a month straight before finally succeeding? Probably not many.

Once I started mastering keeping the ball up, I began learning basic tricks, namely; the around the world.

The around the world (atw) is a move where you keep the ball up while making one full revolution around the ball with your foot and continue to control it. It’s a move mastered by everyone and anyone who is considered a great footballer or freestyler.

I learned the atw before modern social media, in a time where you went off memory of seeing someone else do it plus a little imagination and ingenuity. I was 12 and persistent. After probably thousands of failed attempts, I did it!

Thousands of failed attempts. Maybe it was hundreds or dozens, but when you can’t do something it seems like forever before you succeed.

What I learned: If you do it once, you can do it again, you can master it.

How to do the atw:

1) keep the ball up consistently with your dominant foot below knee height

2) Once in control, use the top of the knuckle of your big toe to make firm contact with the outside bottom right of the ball

3) Immediately after making contact, continue the upward momentum of your foot around the ball counterclockwise until your foot is underneath the ball again.

4) To go the opposite way (clockwise), use the outside of your dominant foot instead of the toe knuckle

Landing the move for the first time was enlightening for me, a realization on what I could accomplish after achieving something I used to look at as impossible.

You don’t need my help to land or master the around the world, you need belief and time. You need to try and try over and over even if it takes a thousand or more tries.

If you’ve never done the around the world and want to try an easy version click here or watch my full tutorial below!