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A bicycle kick, also known as an overhead kick or scissors kick,[upper-alpha 1] is a physical move in association football that is achieved by throwing the body up into the air, making shearing movement with the legs to get one leg in front of the other without holding on to the ground. The action, which occurs almost entirely on mid-air, is commonly named after the motion that it resembles in English and most other languages.[3] Their complexity and uncommon performance in competitive football matches make bicycle kicks one of association football's most celebrated skills.[upper-alpha 2]
Bicycle kicks are used in association football when players find the acrobatic maneuver as their best resource. Defenders use it to clear away the ball from the goalmouth, and forwards use it to strike at goal in an attempt to score. The bicycle kick is an advanced football skill that, due to its difficulty, is dangerous for inexperienced players. Its successful performance has largely been limited to the most experienced and athletic players in football history.[5]
The bicycle kick was invented in South America, possibly as early as in the late 19th century, during a period of development in football history that resulted from local adaptations to the sport introduced by British immigrants.[6][7] Different stories exist in South America that narrate the history of the bicycle kick's invention, but it is not known for certain who was the first person to have exhibited the skill. What is known is that the bicycle kick and other football skills and tactics that developed in South American would eventually be displayed in Europe after South American footballers migrated there to play the sport.
As an iconic football skill, bicycle kicks have been prominently featured both in film and in advertisements. A bicycle kick performance in a competitive football match, particularly when a goal is attained by way of this action, usually receives wide attention in the sports press. Several players are still popularly remembered, in football lore, thanks to their bicycle kicks. The controversy over the move's invention, and its status as an element of the football rivalry between Peru and Chile, has added to the bicycle kick's acclaim in popular culture.
The bicycle kick is known in English by three different names. The term "bicycle kick" describes the action of the legs while the body is in mid-air, which resembles the pedaling of a bicycle.[8] The motion is also called an "overhead kick," which (according to football instructors Klaus Bischops and Heinz-Willi Gerards) is specific to the ball being "kicked above head level."[9] The maneuver is also referred to as a "scissors kick," because—as described by professional football coach Colin Schmidt—when "the kicking foot goes to meet the ball, the non-kicking foot makes a quick move back toward the ball (like blades of scissors coming together)."[10]
Languages other than English also name the maneuver after the action that it resembles—sports journalist Alejandro Cisternas, from Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, compiled a list that indicates this to be the case in most tongues.[3] In the majority of cases, these names either refer to the kick's scissor-like motion, such as the French ciseaux retourné and the Greek psalidaki, or to its bicycle-like action, such as the Persian gheychi and the Portuguese pontapé de bicicleta.[3] Other names that describe the nature of the action include the German fallrückzieher (falling backward kick), the Polish przewrotka (overturn kick), and the Italian rovesciata (reversed kick).[3]
Exceptions to this naming standard are found in languages that designate the move by making reference to a location, such as the term brassespark (Brazilian kick) in Norwegian.[3][11] This exception is most significant in Spanish, where there exists a fierce controversy between Chile and Peru—as part of their historic sports rivalry—over the naming of the bicycle kick; Peruvians call it the chalaca, while Chileans know it as the chilena.[12] Regardless, the move is also known in Spanish by the less tendentious names of tijera and tijereta—both a reference to the maneuver's scissor-like motion.[13]
Origin
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The bicycle kick was invented in South America, during an era of innovation in association football tactics and skills.[6][7] Football was introduced to South America by British immigrants who, through the 1800s, were attracted by the region's economic prospects, including the export of coffee from Brazil, hide and meat from Argentina, and guano from Peru.[16] These immigrant communities founded institutions, such as schools and sporting clubs, where activities mirrored those done in Britain—including the practice of association football.[16]
Football's practice had previously spread from Britain to mainland Europe, principally Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, but no innovations were made to the game in these locations.[17] Matters developed differently in South America because, rather than simply imitate the immigrant's style of play—which was based more on the slower "Scottish passing game" than on the faster and rougher English football style—the South Americans contributed to the sport's growth by emphasizing the players' technical qualities.[18] By adapting the sport to their preferences, South American footballers mastered individual skills like the dribble, bending free kicks, and the bicycle kick.[19]
Bicycle kicks first occurred in the Pacific ports of Chile and Peru.[20] While their ships docked, British mariners played football among themselves and with locals as a form of leisure; the sport's practice was embraced at the ports because its simple rules and equipment made it accessible to the general public.[21] Peru's chief seaport of Callao, where football became a working-class sport,[22] is possibly where the bicycle kick originates as news reports and oral traditions indicate that the local Afro-Peruvians performed the bicycle kick or tiro de chalaca ("chalaca shot", as spectators called it in reference to the local demonym) in the late 19th century, during matches with British sailors and railroad employees.[20][23] Chile's important seaport of Talcahuano also holds a bicycle kick tradition dating to the second decade of the twentieth century, when Ramón Unzaga, a Basque athlete born in Spain and naturalized Chilean, allegedly invented the manoeuvre locally known as chorera (also alluding the local demonym).[24][upper-alpha 4]
Argentine sports journalist Jorge Barraza reconciles both visions by reasoning that, since the active trade between Callao and Valparaíso helped make matches between Chilean and Peruvian mariners commonplace, Chileans likely learned about the bicycle kick through these games, which Colombian journalist Alejandro Millán Valencia considers the first international football matches between Chile and Peru.[20][28] Chilean newspaper records even refer to the move as a chalaca in the early 1900s, including when Peruvian forward Alejandro Villanueva performed it during Alianza Lima's undefeated tour in Chile in 1935.[20][27][upper-alpha 5]
Diffusion
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The skill's diffusion beyond Western South America began in the 1910s and 1920s, thanks to Chilean footballers.[6][20] In the first editions of the South American Championship, Unzaga and fellow Chile defender Francisco Gatica amazed spectators with their bicycle kicks—Gatica's usage of the move to stop an imminent goal garnered him so much attention that he was credited by the audience with the move's invention.[20][29][upper-alpha 6] Chilean forward David Arellano also memorably performed the move and other risky manoeuvres during Colo-Colo's 1927 tour of Spain—his untimely death in that tour from an injury caused by one of his acrobatics is, according to Simpson and Hesse, "a grim warning about the perils of showboating".[20][26][34] Impressed by the Chileans' bicycle kicks, aficionados from Spain and Argentina named the skill chilena, a reference to the players' nationality.[6][20]
Football skills from South America, including the bicycle kick, also reached Europe through Italy, which received numerous Argentine, Uruguayan, and Brazilian footballers until the mid-1930s, before the start of the Second World War.[35] By this time, the bicycle kick and other skills (such as the back-heel volley and the diving header) had become crucial to the nascent football of the Río de la Plata and the nucleus of what newspaper El Gráfico in 1928 praised as a uniquely Argentine style of football; that newspaper even claimed local striker Pedro Calomino of Boca Juniors had invented the manoeuvre.[36] In Brazil, footballer Petronilho de Brito achieved notoriety for his bicycle kicks or bicicletas (as it was locally known), notably scoring twice during a 1922 match between clubs from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro—locals also credited to him the move's invention.[37] The bicycle kick attained greater notability after the France 1938 World Cup quarter-finals match between Brazil and Czechoslovakia, when Brazilian forward Leônidas da Silva cemented his fame by attempting to score from the bicicleta as he had twice, in 1932, against Uruguay.[38][39] Leônidas would also be hailed as the manoeuvre's inventor.[38]
The South American football style and the Danubian School, a football system from Central Europe that emphasized ball control and tactical positioning, influenced Italian football and its development of a fourth model of play.[19] This Italian football style furthered the sport's complexity by giving more precise roles for individual players, especially defenders, and emphasizing micro-level tactics.[19] During this period, numerous Italian footballers became prominent performers of the bicycle kick. In the 1930s, the instinctive striker Silvio Piola was among Europe's first notable bicycle kick performers—Italians even credited him for its invention and the phrase a la Piola ("like Piola") became locally synonymous with bicycle kick goals.[40] Also in this decade, Inter Milan forward Giuseppe Meazza was renown for using the manoeuvre, and was even capable of exactly repeating in an official match against Juventus a bicycle kick goal that he had scored at a training session with Italy—thus fulfilling a dare made to him by goalkeeper Gianpiero Combi.[41] The bicycle kick was further popularized in the 1940s by Italian defender Carlo Parola, nicknamed Signor Rovesciata ("Mr. Reverse Kick"), and Italians also credited him with its invention.[42][43]
At around the same time, Doug Ellis, President Emeritus of English club Aston Villa, claimed to have invented the manoeuvre at Southport; however, due to the lack of new developments in British football at the time, Ellis may have been the first player to make a bicycle kick in England.[34][36]
Pelé's kick
During the second half of the twentieth century, the bicycle kick would again be brought forth to international acclaim by Pelé, who learned the manoeuvre from Petronilho's younger brother, Waldemar de Brito.[44][45] Pelé's capability to perform bicycle kicks with ease was one of the traits that made him stand out from other players early in his sports career, and it also boosted his self-confidence as a footballer.[46] The majority of the goals that Pelé scored from a bicycle kick occurred during club matches with Santos FC and the New York Cosmos, but the most celebrated is the one he scored in an international football match between Brazil and Belgium in 1968.[45][47][48] Due to the skill's rarity at the time, Pelé's bicycle kick caught the Belgian goalkeeper by surprise and dumbfounded the spectators; an iconic photograph, taken while Pelé was in mid-air, helped immortalize the event.[45][48] Pelé has since been closely associated with the bicycle kick and has also been attributed its invention.[49]
After Pelé, Argentine midfielder Diego Maradona and Mexican forward Hugo Sánchez became notable performers of the bicycle kick during the last decades of the 20th century.[50] Other notable players to have performed the move during this period include Peruvian winger Juan Carlos Oblitas, who scored a bicycle kick goal in a 1975 Copa América match between Peru and Chile, and Welsh forward Mark Hughes, who scored from a bicycle kick in a World Cup qualification match played between Wales and Spain in 1985.[51]
Modern acclaim
Some of the late twentieth century's most memorable bicycle kicks have also been performed in the FIFA World Cup finals.[upper-alpha 7] German striker Klaus Fischer scored from a bicycle kick in the Spain 1982 World Cup semi-finals match between West Germany and France, tying the score in overtime—the game then went into a penalty shootout, which ended in favour of the German team.[52] Hesse and Simpson consider Fischer's action the World Cup's most outstanding bicycle kick.[53] In the Mexico 1986 World Cup, Mexican midfielder Manuel Negrete Arias scored from a bicycle kick during the round of 16 match between Mexico and Bulgaria—despite receiving great notability early in the tournament, Negrete's goal was eventually overshadowed by "The Goal of the Century" scored by Maradona in the quarter-finals match between Argentina and England.[54]
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the bicycle kick continues to be a skill that is rarely successfully executed in football matches.[50] In 2001, Spanish midfielder Guti scored a bicycle kick goal in a match between Real Madrid and Villarreal that sports journalist Rob Smyth listed as one of the six best bicycle kicks in the history of football in an article for theguardian.com.[51] In the Korea-Japan 2002 World Cup, Belgian attacking midfielder Marc Wilmots scored what English football writer Brian Glanville describes as a "spectacular bicycle kick" against Japan.[55] Other notable players to have performed the bicycle kick in recent years include Swedish forward Zlatan Ibrahimović, who in 2012 scored an overhead goal during an international friendly match between Sweden and England, and English forward Wayne Rooney, who during the 2011 Manchester derby scored a bicycle kick that was voted as the best in the Premier League's history.[53]
The bicycle kick was invented in South America, during an era of innovation in association football tactics and skills.[6][7] Football was introduced to South America by British immigrants who, during the 1800s, were attracted by the region's economic prospects, including the export of coffee from Brazil, hide and meat from Argentina, and guano from Peru.[16] These immigrant communities founded institutions, such as schools and sporting clubs, where activities mirrored those done in Britain—including the practice of association football.[16]
Football's practice had previously spread from Britain to mainland Europe, principally Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, but no innovations were made to the game in these locations.[17] Matters developed differently in South America because, rather than simply imitate the immigrant's style of play—which was based more on the slower "Scottish passing game" than on the faster and rougher English football style—the South Americans contributed to the sport's growth by emphasizing the players' technical qualities.[18] By adapting the sport to their preferences, South American footballers mastered individual skills like the dribble, bending free kicks, and the bicycle kick.[19]
Bicycle kicks first occurred in the Pacific ports of Chile and Peru.[20] While their ships docked, British mariners played football among themselves and with locals as a form of leisure; the sport's practice was embraced at the ports because its simple rules and equipment made it accessible to the general public.[57] In Peru's chief seaport of Callao, where football became a working-class sport,[58] news reports and oral traditions indicate that the local Afro-Peruvians performed the bicycle kick in the late 19th century, during matches with British sailors and railroad employees.[20][59] Since matches between Chilean and Peruvian mariners also were common, Argentine sports journalist Jorge Barraza reasons that Chileans learned about the bicycle kick or tiro de chalaca ("chalaca shot", as spectators called it) through these games, which Colombian journalist Alejandro Millán Valencia considers the first international football matches between Chile and Peru.[20][28][upper-alpha 9]
The skill's diffusion began during the 1910s and 1920s, when Chilean footballers performed it beyond Western South America.[6][20] In the first editions of the South American Championship, Chilean defenders Ramón Unzaga and Francisco Gatica amazed spectators with their bicycle kicks.[20][29][upper-alpha 10] Unzaga, a Basque athlete born in Spain and naturalized Chilean, is also notably the first individual associated with this skill;[64][upper-alpha 11] the bicycle kick was even named by Chilean newspapers as chorera, alluding to Unzaga's home in Talcahuano, Chile.[28] Chilean forward David Arellano also memorably performed the move during Colo-Colo's 1927 tour of Spain.[20][26][upper-alpha 12] Impressed by the Chileans' bicycle kicks, aficionados from Spain and Argentina named the skill chilena, a reference to the players' nationality.[6][20]
Football skills from South America, including the bicycle kick, also reached Europe through Italy, which received numerous Argentine, Uruguayan, and Brazilian footballers until the mid-1930s.[65] By that time, the bicycle kick and other skills (such as the back-heel volley and the diving header) had become a crucial aspect of the nascent football of the Río de la Plata and the nucleus of what newspaper El Gráfico in 1928 praised as a uniquely Argentine style of football; that newspaper even claimed an Argentine, striker Pedro Calomino of Boca Juniors, had invented the manoeuvre.[36] The South American football style and the Danubian School, a football system from Central Europe that emphasized ball control and tactical positioning on the field, was of significant importance in Italian football and its development of a fourth model of play.[19] This Italian football style furthered the sport's complexity by giving more precise roles for individual players, especially defenders, and emphasizing micro-level tactics.[19]
During the 1930s, the instinctive striker Silvio Piola of Italy was among Europe's first notable bicycle kick performers—Italians even credited him for its invention and the phrase a la Piola ("like Piola") became locally synonymous with bicycle kick goals.[66] The bicycle kick attained greater notability after it was performed in the France 1938 World Cup quarter-finals match between Brazil and Czechoslovakia, by the Brazilian forward Leônidas da Silva.[38][67] At the international level, he had previously scored twice from a bicycle kick, in 1932, against Uruguay.[68] Leônidas would also be hailed as the manoeuvre's inventor, or as the one to have perfected it, and the bicycle kick continues being closely associated with the Brazilian football style.[38]
According to sports historian David Goldblatt's, the influx of South American footballers ended before the start of the Second World War.[69] In spite of the war, football continued being practiced in various European countries. During the 1940s, the bicycle kick was again popularized in Italy by local defender Carlo Parola, nicknamed Signor Rovesciata ("Mr. Reverse Kick"), and Italians credited him with its invention.[70][71] Doug Ellis, President Emeritus of English club Aston Villa, claimed to have invented the manoeuvre at Southport at around the same time; however, due to the lack of new developments in British football at the time, Ellis may have been the first player to make a bicycle kick in England.[34][36]
Pelé's kick
It was also around this time that, in Brazil, footballer Petronilho de Brito would achieve notoriety for his bicycle kicks—locally receiving credit for the move's invention.[37] During a 1922 match between clubs from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Petronilho notably scored twice from a bicycle kick—or bicicleta, as it was locally known.[72]
During the second half of the twentieth century, the bicycle kick would again be brought forth to international acclaim by Pelé, who learned the manoeuvre from Petronilho's younger brother, Waldemar de Brito.[73][45] Pelé's capability to perform bicycle kicks with ease was one of the traits that made him stand out from other players early in his sports career, and it also boosted his self-confidence as a footballer.[74]
The majority of the goals that Pelé scored from a bicycle kick occurred during club matches with Santos FC and the New York Cosmos, but the most celebrated is the one he scored in an international football match between Brazil and Belgium in 1968.[45][47][48] Due to the skill's rarity at the time, Pelé's bicycle kick caught the Belgian goalkeeper by surprise and dumbfounded the spectators; an iconic photograph, taken while Pelé was in mid-air, helped immortalize the event.[45][48] Pelé has since been closely associated with the bicycle kick and has also been attributed its invention.[49]
After Pelé, Argentine midfielder Diego Maradona and Mexican forward Hugo Sánchez became notable performers of the bicycle kick during the last decades of the 20th century.[50] Other notable players to have performed the move during this period include Peruvian winger Juan Carlos Oblitas, who scored a bicycle kick goal in a 1975 Copa América match between Peru and Chile, and Welsh forward Mark Hughes, who scored from a bicycle kick in a World Cup qualification match played between Wales and Spain in 1985.[51]
Modern acclaim
Some of the late twentieth century's most memorable bicycle kicks have also been performed in the FIFA World Cup finals.[upper-alpha 13] German striker Klaus Fischer scored from a bicycle kick in the Spain 1982 World Cup semi-finals match between West Germany and France, tying the score in overtime—the game then went into a penalty shootout, which ended in favour of the German team.[75] Hesse and Simpson consider Fischer's action the World Cup's most outstanding bicycle kick.[53] In the Mexico 1986 World Cup, Mexican midfielder Manuel Negrete Arias scored from a bicycle kick during the round of 16 match between Mexico and Bulgaria—despite receiving great notability early in the tournament, Negrete's goal was eventually overshadowed by "The Goal of the Century" scored by Maradona in the quarter-finals match between Argentina and England.[54]
Not all bicycle kicks in association football's major international tournament have to result in a goal to be notable, however, as proven by a memorable bicycle kick that occurred in the United States 1994 World Cup, when U.S. defender Marcelo Balboa used the skill during the group stage match between Colombia and the United States. Even though it did not result in a goal, Balboa's move has received much praise and is even credited with boosting the sport's popularity in the United States.[76]
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the bicycle kick continues to be a skill that is rarely successfully executed in football matches.[50] In 2001, Spanish midfielder Guti scored a bicycle kick goal in a match between Real Madrid and Villarreal that sports journalist Rob Smyth listed as one of the six best bicycle kicks in the history of football in an article for theguardian.com.[51] In the Korea-Japan 2002 World Cup, Belgian attacking midfielder Marc Wilmots scored what English football writer Brian Glanville describes as a "spectacular bicycle kick" against Japan.[55] Other notable players to have performed the bicycle kick in recent years include Swedish forward Zlatan Ibrahimović, who in 2012 scored an overhead goal during an international friendly match between Sweden and England, and English forward Wayne Rooney, who during the 2011 Manchester derby scored a bicycle kick that was voted as the best in the Premier League's history.[53]
The bicycle kick retains popular appeal; Hesse and Simpson highlight the positive impact a successful bicycle kick has on player notability, and the United States Soccer Federation describes it as an iconic embellishment of the sport.[77] According to former Manchester City defender Paul Lake, a notable bicycle kick performed by English left winger Dennis Tueart in the English Premier League injured hundreds of fans who tried to emulate it.[78] When Italian striker Mario Balotelli during his youth development years tried to pattern his skills on those of Brazilian midfielder Ronaldinho and French midfielder Zinedine Zidane, he fixated on the bicycle kick.[79] The manoeuvre is also admired in variants of association football, such as beach soccer and futsal.[80][81] An action like the bicycle kick is also used in sepak takraw, a sport whose objective is to kick a ball over a net and into the opposing team's side.[82]
Bicycle kicks are also an important part of football culture. According to the United States Soccer Federation, Pelé's bicycle kick in the 1981 film Escape to Victory is a textbook execution of the skill[50] and Pelé expressed satisfaction with his attempt to "show off" for the film in his autobiography.[49] A Google Doodle in September 2013, celebrating Leônidas da Silva's 100th birthday, prominently featured a bicycle kick performed by a stick figure representing the popular Brazilian forward.[83] Bicycle kicks have also been featured in advertisements, such as in a 2014 television commercial where Argentine forward Lionel Messi executes the manoeuvre to promote that year's FIFA football simulation video game.[84]
A monument to the bicycle kick executed by Ramón Unzaga was erected in Talcahuano, Chile, in 2014; created by sculptor María Angélica Echavarri, the statue is composed of copper and bronze and measures three meters in diameter.[80] A statue in honor of Manuel Negrete's bicycle kick is planned for the Coyoacán district of Mexico City.[85] The Uruguayan novelist Eduardo Galeano wrote about the bicycle kick in his book Soccer in Sun and Shadow, praising Unzaga as the inventor.[86] The Peruvian Nobel laureate writer Mario Vargas Llosa has the protagonist in The Time of the Hero's Spanish edition declare that the bicycle kick must have been invented in Callao, Peru.[87]
Origin controversy
According to journalist Diego Pérez, bicycle kicks are currently less common and their origins cloudier.[6] Popular opinion in Brazil, Chile, and Peru defends those nations' claims of inventing the bicycle kick.[80][88] Witzig acknowledges different names for the move, depending on country.[1]
In Goal: The New York Times Soccer Blog, journalist Juan Arango wrote that the bicycle kick's origin is a sensitive issue in Peru and Chile.[89] In 2006, Harold Mayne-Nicholls, president of the Football Federation of Chile (FFCh), poked gentle fun at Peruvian insistence on credit for the bicycle kick.[90] That year Mayne-Nicholls' Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) counterpart, Manuel Burga, announced a campaign to verify the bicycle kick's origin in his country.[90] In 2009, Peruvian footballer Teófilo Cubillas advised the FPF to patent the manoeuvre with FIFA,[91] and that year Chilean footballer Sandrino Castec expressed his belief that the Peruvian position was based on anti-Chilean sentiment.[3]
According to Brazilian anthropologist Antonio Jorge Soares, the bicycle kick's origin is important only as an example of how folklore is created.[92] In the Spanish newspaper El País, journalist Alberto Lati raised no objection to local names for the move.[93] Simpson and Hesse agree that the move's name should be a matter of personal opinion.[94] Roberto Castro wrote that the bicycle kick's alternate names are synonyms, with no one name definitive.[27]
- HMS Amphion arrived at Callao from Panama, and would proceed for repairs to Valparaiso, Chile.[14][15] The squad from Peru was composed of British and Peruvian footballers from the local clubs Unión Cricket and Lima Cricket—the latter possibly being the oldest club in the Americas that today plays association football.[14] The image reads: "The sight that we offer today to our readers was taken especially for El Comercio, in the moments in which was occurring in Santa Beatriz, this past Thursday, the most interesting part of the football match between sailors from the English warship Amphion and the Peruvian eleven that were victorious, as we had reported when we announced past Friday about this beautiful sports fest".
- Unzaga's first bicycle kick occurred possibly in 1914 or in 1916.[25] Journalist Luis Osses Guíñez, the author of Talcahuano's football history, argues that Unzaga's first recorded bicycle kick occurred in 1918, as documented by a civil law notary report filed after a heated match between Talcahuano and neighbouring Concepción turned violent. Unzaga, described by Osses Guíñez as a hot-tempered Basque, fistfought a referee who called a foul on the player's bicycle kick.[26] Concepción's newspaper El Sur reported this event a few days after the match, and Unzaga declares in his defense that he had previously executed the manoeuvre in other matches without it being called a foul.[27]
- Uruguayan journalist Pérez writes that "therefore, the chilena is in reality Peruvian and it initially was known as chalaca".[6] Colombian football historians Pedro Páez and Daniel Pineda state that "there are very serious registries that indicate its [the bicycle kick's] birth was much further back, in the port of Callao".[28]
- Unzaga participated in the Argentina 1916 and Chile 1920 editions of the South American Championship;[30][31] Gatica participated in the tournament's Uruguay 1917 and Brazil 1919 editions.[32][33]
- In his autobiography, Pelé expressed regret for not having scored a goal from a bicycle kick in the FIFA World Cup.[49]
- HMS Amphion arrived at Callao from Panama, and would proceed for repairs to Valparaiso, Chile.[14][56] The squad from Peru was composed of British and Peruvian footballers from the local clubs Unión Cricket and Lima Cricket—the latter possibly being the oldest club in the Americas that today plays association football.[14] The image reads: "The sight that we offer today to our readers was taken especially for El Comercio, in the moments in which was occurring in Santa Beatriz, this past Thursday, the most interesting part of the football match between sailors from the English warship Amphion and the Peruvian eleven that were victorious, as we had reported when we announced past Friday about this beautiful sports fest".
- Uruguayan journalist Pérez writes that "therefore, the chilena is in reality Peruvian and it initially was known as chalaca".[6] Colombian football historians Pedro Páez and Daniel Pineda state that "there are very serious registries that indicate its [the bicycle kick's] birth was much further back, in the port of Callao".[28] Barraza, former director of CONMEBOL's official magazine (Magazine Conmebol), affirms that Chilean newspaper records from 1900 also name the bicycle kick as a chalaca (alluding to the port of Callao, Peru),[20] a term that they would reportedly use again in 1935 when Peruvian forward Alejandro Villanueva performed it during Alianza Lima's undefeated tour in Chile.[27]
- Unzaga participated in the Argentina 1916 and Chile 1920 editions of the South American Championship;[60][61] Gatica participated in the tournament's Uruguay 1917 and Brazil 1919 editions.[62][63]
- Unzaga's first bicycle kick is dated as occurring either in 1914 or in 1916.[25] According to journalist Luis Osses Guíñez, the author of Talcahuano's football history, Unzaga's first recorded bicycle kick occurred in 1918, as documented by a civil law notary report filed after a heated match between Talcahuano and neighbouring Concepción turned violent. Unzaga, described by Osses Guíñez as a hot-tempered Basque, got into a fistfight with a referee who called a foul on the player's bicycle kick.[26] This event was reported a few days after the match in the Concepción newspaper El Sur, where Unzaga defends himself by indicating that he had previously executed the manoeuvre in other matches without it being called a foul.[27]
- Arellano died during that tour of an injury from one of his many risky manoeuvres. Simpson and Hesse consider that Arellano's "memorably premature death is a grim warning about the perils of showboating".[34]
- In his autobiography, Pelé expressed regret for not having scored a goal from a bicycle kick in the FIFA World Cup.[49]
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