Ahead of the Nike Football X Winner Stays European Final in Amsterdam this Sunday (Dec 13) Nike and Magnum Photography partner up to capture the cultural flavour of caged one-on-one and two-on-two tournaments in the Dutch capital.
In the countdown to the main event on Sunday at De Gashouder — a nightclub situated in a former gasworks — Nike spoke to Edward van Gils, a founding member of the champion Street Kings crew who touched on the influence the small-sided game has had in Amsterdam. “Street football had been around forever, so we don’t claim to have invented it, but we changed the style of it,” he explains. “In the mid 1990s we were trying to become professional players but we were struggling. We needed to do something that got that attention.”
“We tried to find a location that was right in the middle of a neighborhood so there’d be buildings around it to create a stadium feel, with the noise and music,” recalls van Gils of those early days. “Then we’d look for one by a subway station. We never stayed in one place.”
Nike have played a prominent role in the history of street football with Air Max 1 and 90 a couple of the original favourites. The Swoosh influence went next level in 2010 with the debut of the Lunar Gato Air Safari – designed for Ronaldo – a stylistic shift occurred and Nike Football became the preferred footwear of street footballers. As a result, a new breed of football shoes, like the Football X emerged. And just as Amsterdam’s street scene has absorbed innovations in footwear, it has influenced how the contemporary game is understood around the world.
Stay tuned for moer on the Nike Football X Winner Stays European Final.
