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00:09 ANDREW: The thrill of freestyling is the ability
to completely express yourself. You can do absolutely whatever you want with the ball,
that's the great thing about it.
00:19 COMM: Andrew Henderson is the world's number
one freestyle footballer. The 22-year-old form Cornwall travels the world showcasing
his outrageous skills and even counts Lionel Messi as a fan.
00:32 ANDREW: I showed him tricks, I showed him
what was possible with a football and that's such a precious moment in my life.
00:38 COMM: Andrew began free styling at the age
of fourteen after seeing a video of legendary freestyler Soufiane Touzani.
00:46 ANDREW: I saw the video maybe a hundred, two
hundred times. Really I just thought it was fake and then I saw some people doing some
similar tricks at my school and I was like wow it's actually possible then I started
training it and it kind of went from there really.
00:58 COMM: Despite suffering a serious leg break
in 2008, Andrew honed and perfected his kick-up skills, winning the UK National Freestyle
Championships in 2009. Two years later he was crowned world champion and retained his
title in both 2012 and 2013. And Andrew's world class ball juggling talents earned him
the chance to meet some of the world's top players like Bobby Charlton, Didier Drogba
and Lionel Messi.
01:29 ANDREW: I was lucky enough to meet Lionel
Messi, in Barcelona and that was fantastic because being able to kind of share what I
do with a football with possibly the greatest footballer of all time. I mean that was just
unbelievable.
01:41 COMM: Andrew is now hoping to make it four
in a row at this years tournament in Prague in August.
01:46 ANDREW: It's harder actually to fund it I
think because you're training hard all the time, everyone's got their eyes on you, everyone
is trying to hunt you down, you know, they really want to be the champion so y'know you've
got to dig extra deep and.
01:57 COMM: And with skills like these, few would
bet against him holding onto his crown.