Red Bull Street Style, the annual freestyle football world championship is back. 2021 will once again see the most creative, technical and stylish player in each gender crowned Red Bull Street Style World Champion. Launched in 2008 the global contest aims to find the best overall freestyle football players in the world.

Red Bull Street Style is the official world championship of freestyle football, with the contest looking different every year. As freestyle football is influenced strongly by contemporary street lifestyle, art and athletics establishing constant progression and innovative trick creations keeps the world championships fresh year after year.

To celebrate the launch of the world championships 2021 freestyle footballer, Polish star athlete Aguska Mnich (2018 Red Bull Street Style winner), and London based street artist, Captain Kris, came together to create a unique mural that represents movement using the freestyle football concept.

As an imaginative illustrator and street artist heavily influenced by comics, cartoons and popular culture Captain Kris said “It was exciting working with Aguska and taking on a new direction to the art piece was refreshing. Integrating football tricks, such as ‘Around the world’ and ‘Rainbow’, into the art piece was a natural progression of the collaboration, as a lot of my work is centred around pop art themed words, so it only felt right to include these in the football centred mural. Having her kick the ball against the wall to create paint splatters for me to work around added a whole new dimension to the mural, which is something I’ve never seen before”.

The mural took five hours to create and street artist, Captain Kris, who is famed for his distinctive work around East London, often freestyles when creating artwork, allowing his self-expression to create spontaneous additions. The same is true of freestyle footballers, as their self-expression is interpreted in their movements and tricks, which can be beautiful and unique.

Words by Alt Sport