Luuk Kruijsdijk: “For me these are the magical moments when a trick finally succeeds after a long training session”.

This time an interview with Luuk Kruijsdijk. He is one of the best football freestylers in the Netherlands and is now conquering the world with his football skills.

Luuk, Would you first like to introduce yourself to the audience?

I am Luuk Kruijsdijk, 19 years old. I am a freestyle footballer and live in thorn in the province of utrecht. I have been doing this for about 4 years now and I really enjoy it. I can be found on Instagram under the name @Luukfreestyle. In 2019 I was Dutch rookie champion.

When did you start with freestyle?

As a child I was always busy with football, I have been playing normal football since I was 4. I often did tricks in the match, but my coaches and teammates were not always happy with that. So I slowly started practicing the tricks I did on the field on the street. I started to master these tricks more and more and so I slowly rolled into the world of street football / freestyle football. In 2016 I participated in my first panna tournament and in 2017 with the NK Freestyle football. Here, 32 freestylers competed against each other, of which 1 freestyler was eventually crowned as Dutch Champion. To make the right decisions during the battles and end up with the best freestyler in the Netherlands, 3 jury members were present.

Which countries have you visited by street football and where do you still want to go?

I participated twice in the World Cup Freestyle Football in Prague, I expect to participate again next summer. In addition, I trained with the French champion from 2018 in France. It seems very cool to train with others in distant countries. So I have only been in 2 countries so far. I hope to increase that number in the coming years.

What is the coolest street football event you attended?

A while ago Panna Knock Out organized a very cool event in Rotterdam. I think this was at the World Cup after one of the best events because it was fairly small-scale, so there were very good vibes. There were many other freestylers here and I learned a lot from them.

Where did your passion for street football come from?

For me, these are the magical moments when a trick finally succeeds after a long training session and how other people react positively to what they see. That gives me motivation to keep training and improve myself.