Dubai: Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Mario Kempes and Alfredo Di Stefano — just some of the stellar names who have illuminated two-time world champions Argentina’s rich footballing history.
This summer, another shining epitome of the Beautiful Game from the South American country garnered renown for her luminous ability with a football — model, actress and radio producer, Fiorella Castillo.
While Messi and co were losing finalists at this summer’s Fifa World Cup, the 24-year-old was demonstrating her football skills of the freestyle variety (keepy-uppy, to the layman) on Brazilian beaches during the tournament.
But apart from her beguiling looks and the bewitching novelty of a woman juggling the ball with aplomb, what made her such a headline-grabbing act for major media players such as Yahoo and Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper was the fact she was doing so in high heels.
Fiorella also boasted that, despite her towering footwear — “my heels are between 10 and 15 centimetres high” — she had beaten more than 800 men who had challenged her to a game of freestyle on Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro.
Exponents of the activity use different parts of their body to keep a football airborne through various skills.
Fiorella feels so comfortable juggling the ball in heels, that she is confident she could outperform her illustrious compatriot, Messi, in the art of freestyle.
“If I was playing with Messi and I was in my heels, for sure I could defeat him,” she told Gulf News, in an exclusive telephone interview from Argentina.
She added with a chuckle: “If we were both wearing heels, I would definitely win, although I’m not sure he’d want to wear heels. I said during the World Cup I would challenge him to a game, but it was more of a joke, although some newspapers in Argentina took it seriously and asked: ‘Is this girl serious?’.
“I feel very confident I could beat him at freestyle, though, because, although he may be the best footballer in the world, it doesn’t mean he could do the same things as I can with the ball in a freestyle sense,” Fiorella continued.
“I’d still love to challenge him, but would not dare to do so as he’s the best player in the world. I’ve not spoken to him as he has a girlfriend and a girl calling a guy can be misunderstood, especially a superstar like him. I could be seen as some gold digger.
“But if someone contacted me and asked me to do it, I would love to, especially if it involved kids that love him so much. That would be a lot of fun.”
Fiorella is similarly enthusiastic about a nickname some football fans have given her in recognition of her sublime talent mirroring that of the Argentina and Barcelona maestro — ‘Messi in heels’.
“Messi in heels? That’s not a problem, it’s fine for me,” she said. “If people want to call me ‘that crazy woman in heels’, that’s fine, too.”
The Buenos Aires-born performer added that some of her Twitter followers have christened her ‘Crack-stillo’ — a play on her surname and reflecting her prodigious skill.
What about taking on Fifa’s current world player of the year, the king of the step-over Cristiano Ronaldo, even more of an exhibitionist than Messi when it comes to showing off his freestyle ability in training?
Fiorella, who is an ardent follower of one of Argentina’s leading football clubs, River Plate, like her entire family, said: “He’s a fantastic player. If I was to challenge him, I’d ask him to give me some lessons. I would love to challenge him. He’s so good looking, too, that maybe in heels he would look divine.”
She says she first discovered her innate adroitness with a football during her childhood — which she combined with her inherent love of shoes to provide a more feminine portrayal of a woman playing a traditionally man’s sport.
Her lofty heels have unsurprisingly become her trademark, she says proudly, with female admirers amazed at how she can perform such impressive feats in shoes which they would struggle to walk in, let alone keep a football off the ground.
“I do this [wear heels] because I have a weakness in my life — I love shoes,” she said. “I am used to heels from walking on modelling catwalks, so it’s not difficult for me to wear a lot.
“I’ve never used football boots [for freestyle]. They don’t make me feel very feminine, so I prefer to play in heels or barefoot. It just comes naturally to me.”
She added: “Sometimes female footballers are criticised for being very manly, which is not very positive for the sport. My heels are usually 10-15 centimetres high, although for a McDonald’s advert during the World Cup, I wore stilettos. That was very difficult — I don’t know how I did it.”
Fiorella particularly revelled in embarrassing ‘macho’ males who were convinced they could outdo her at freestyle in Brazil — only to don her magical heels and make them look foolish with her astonishing prowess.
She says her favourite skills are ‘Around the world’, whereby you flick the ball up and lift your leg around it in a single revolution, before beginning to juggle it again, and ‘Bicycle Juggle’, which involves keeping the ball in the air with the soles of your feet while lying on your back.
She says she has no desire to compete professionally in freestyle, preferring to use it as an alternative to the gym, given that she finds it more “fun and dynamic”, especially if she uses her arms as well as her feet.
While some critics may denounce her as nothing more than a frivolous circus act — and she does not pretend to be anything more than an entertainer — Fiorella says her ultimate goal is to use sport as a tool for social good.
She’s involved in sporting projects in her homeland which aim to keep youngsters off the streets and out of trouble, with drugs a particular omnipresent ill in her homeland.
“I dream of one day having an organisation which helps create sporting stadia for people who don’t have anywhere to play — to help kids socialise and stay away from drugs and stuff,” said Fiorella, who along with her modelling, has done radio, TV and theatre work after beginning a media studies degree, which she did not finish due to her extra-curricular commitments.
“Sport for me is the basis of everything. It helps me a lot in life. When I feel lonely, sport shows me my place in life.”
Fiorella hopes the exposure she has gained from her videos of her exploits on social media website YouTube can help her build a brand as a sporting crusader.
She is also extremely interested in visiting the United Arab Emirates to showcase her freestyle skills and promote other sports she is passionate about.
One is a combination of basketball and football, another is a mix of football and tennis and finally, she is particularly keen on new activity called bossaball, which includes elements of volleyball, football, gymnastics and capoeira (a Brazilian martial art).
This is played by two teams of five players each on an inflatable court, featuring a trampoline on either side of the net.
She said: “I would love to come over there and show football fans my skills. It’s a beautiful place.
“In Argentina, kids can play the sports I play in the squares and the streets and they don’t need to pay, so it would be great to do the same over there.”
The prospect of meeting Argentina’s favourite footballing son Maradona, who is based in the Emirates in his role as Dubai sports ambassador, is also highly alluring.
“I would love to contact Maradona and do something with him,” she said. “Regardless of any personal problems he’s had, for Argentinians Maradona was the best and is still the best [footballer ever].”
Game-for-a-laugh Maradona, who treated fans at the 2013 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships to an impromptu a rally with tennis player and fellow countryman Juan Martin del Potro, would surely jump at the chance to pit his wits against Fiorella.
The 1986 World Cup winner has frequently demonstrated his celestial footballing gifts by juggling objects such as a water bottle, a golf ball and an orange with his wand-like feet.
However, could he prove superior to “Messi in heels” at freestyle football, especially if asked to wear similar footwear to Fiorella?
Don’t bet on it, although it would certainly be a spectacle to behold, and the diminutive genius (he is 5ft 5ins) would at least enjoy being relatively tall for once.
