Brazilian youngster Gabriel was born without feet, but he can play the game of soccer with the best of them. He spent some time training at the Barcelona youth academy in Brazil. This is another one of those videos that should be a Nike Soccer ad. What an incredible young kid Gabriel is. Amazing picture below of Gabriel playing soccer with no feet.
Watch him with the soccer ball, he’s amazing. He can dribble, tackle and score goals. Incredible story. This should give you motivation to get out on the field on your own with the soccer ball and master it. If this kid can play soccer with not feet or toes then you can juggle a hundred more times or master that move you’ve been working on.
He hopes to one day be playing at the Paralympics but for now 11-year-old Gabriel Muniz is more than happy just to meet his idol Lionel Messi and train with Spanish club Barcelona.
The soccer-mad Brazilian, who was born without feet, will head to Spain for the famous club’s summer training camp in September.
The 11-year-old’s precocious talent on the field was spotted by Barcelona talent scouts who were in Rio on the hunt for football’s next generation of stars.
And while he has no feet, he still has the skills and moves to turn enough heads and be issued an invitation to head to Spain.
British newspapers this morning carried the extraordinary story of the skillful youngster who is not only the best player in his school team but also the captain of his gym team.
“He started walking before he was one. We would go after him, expecting him to keep falling, but he never fell,” his mother Sandra is quotes as saying.
“He is challenging the social norms. When he arrived there [at the Barcelona academy], no one believed in him,” Gabriel’s gym teacher Jose Lopes is quoted as saying.
“But he proved to everyone there he can go head to head with any other boy. So much so that he was invited to go to Spain next month, in September, to showcase his talent.
“The disability only exists inside our heads and he is proving it to everyone; he is challenging the social norms.”
Muniz hopes when he is older that football will be a sport on the Paralympic program