World champion freestyle footballer Liv Cooke on blazing a trail for women  - 'I'm showing us girls can do it and do it better than the guys'

A football is balancing near-motionless on the side of Liv Cooke’s face.

She is squatting slightly, arms out as if she is about to take flight, her head almost horizontal, her eyes focused upwards on the ball.

An easy flick of her neck sends it spinning through the air in a deliberate arc. She taps the ball on her left shoulder, guides it around the back of her neck while she completes a 360-degree turn, and then nudges it up to her forehead. Then, in the time it takes for the ball to drop softly to her toes, she is jumping up – left knee elevated, right foot kicking up to flick it back into the air, all before landing again. Only when Cooke is ready does she allow the ball to land on the back of her hand, roll up to her shoulder and back again, before she scoops it under her arm, a ready smile radiating from her face.

Forget keepie-uppies – this is next-level trickery, and Cooke knows it.

When I ask if she ever tires of the adulation which invariably follows any time she kicks a ball in the air, she is incredulous. “Of course not,” she laughs, in a broad Lancashire accent. “Keep it coming!” 

Liv Cooke won the freestyling world title in 2017
Liv Cooke won freestyling world title in 2017 Credit: John Nguyen/JNVisuals

Cooke is showcasing her skills just off Brick Lane in east London in front of graffiti-laden walls, an area most often the haunt of tourists and Instagram influencers intent on capturing the perfect picture. Even they have broken off, however, to gather and watch Cooke’s impromptu performance. What some watching open-mouthed will not know, though, is that this is not some talented street performer, but a world champion freestyle footballer with more social media influence than they could ever imagine.

To win the world title in 2017, aged 18, Cooke went through a series of battles against fellow female freestylers, with her efforts judged by a panel based on difficulty, all-round ability, originality, execution and control. The sport only formally began putting together official rankings and competitions in the late Noughties. Freestyling’s world championships, the Super Ball, was first organised in 2011, and Cooke was the youngest-ever winner.

Since then, she has forged a career as a Uefa ambassador, built a following of 469,000 followers on Instagram, filmed adverts alongside Gary Lineker and Rio Ferdinand and fronted promotional campaigns for women’s football – all by the age of 19 and while still living at home with her parents in Leyland. Her mother even packs her suitcase for overseas trips.

Not that Cooke is lacking in self-belief. Just listen to her describing the personalised ball she is manufacturing: “The panelling on this one is great, but mine is going to be better,” she says, handling the ball she chose to use today. “I’ve been very specific, I know what I want.

“I’m rushing [the designer] a bit, but I want it to be perfect. I’ve had eight designs through and I don’t like any of them. I’m looking at it thinking, ‘Don’t like it, won’t kick it’.” Cooke will not settle for anything less than the best, and she wants to get there quickly. She is also hands-on in the work she associates herself with. Most of the video content she posts to her hundreds of thousands of followers online is produced and often filmed by her. She travels with a content assistant, too, but says the ideas for videos are mostly born from her brainstorms in the shower.

This single-mindedness is what powers her through her tick-list of goals.

Even with no national organisation, nor a single professional female freestyler in the UK to look up to, Cooke was undeterred. She dropped out of college at 16 and abandoned her footballing ambitions – she had stints at Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End’s academies – to pursue her dream of becoming world champion freestyler.

“I knew I was the best, there was no doubt in my mind. I was going in to collect my trophy, that’s how I saw it. I already saw myself as world champion,” she says.

The unwavering confidence she possesses is refreshing, rather than grating, and symptomatic of an occasionally brutal level of honesty.

“I remember waking up after the worlds and everybody had gone to work after celebrating. I was like: ‘What now?’ It was probably the lowest few days of my life, an adaptive time. 

“Just imagine getting everything you ever wanted, you have nothing left. I didn’t know what interested me any more. I still train, I still want to make sure I’m the best. But finding new goals was very hard for me.”

Telegraph journalist Molly McElwee is shown some tips by Liv Cooke
Telegraph journalist Molly McElwee is shown some tips by Liv Cooke Credit: John Nguyen/JNVisuals

Cooke says her new ambitions are more broadly defined as “progress”. They centre around making a difference with her platform, especially in getting more girls involved in football. Cooke’s own experience of sexist remarks and elements of “neglect” in the treatment of female freestylers, in which they are often an afterthought to the men, inspired her to promote a message of inclusion.

“They will typically always hire a male freestyler over a female one, so that’s what I’m trying to change,” she says. 

“And that’s why I am proud to be better than the guys so I can step out on that stage and show that us girls can do it and we’re going to be better, not just equally as good.”

She has joined Juan Mata’s Common Goal, pledging one per cent of her earnings to worldwide issues, including gender inequality. Then her work as a Uefa ambassador includes presenting its YouTube channel, We Play Strong, aiming to increase girls’ participation in football by shining a light on female role models.

The episodes have taken her across Europe, from freestyling atop a fishing boat in a remote Norwegian village to interviewing icons of the women’s game such as Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg – the player so cringingly asked to “twerk” on stage by the ceremony’s presenter.

“I think it’s honestly just the fact that [girls] can’t see the pathway,” Cooke continues. “What I love about women’s football is none of them are in it for the money – some of them struggle financially because that’s the career they’ve chosen because they love the game. That’s not fair, but it is improving. There’s role models now being highlighted, people living off the sport. It’s happening slowly.”

Cooke has now effectively retired from competitive freestyling, saying there would be no satisfaction in winning the same title again. The only thing that could lure her back would be a new star freestyler challenging her (“If somebody comes along and gets a bit cocky and calls me out then I’ll set the record straight”) or if freestyling ever reaches the Olympic Games (“I wouldn’t mind a gold medal”).

But do not think this evolution is a sign of her dropping the ball, Cooke’s drive is unlikely to let up: “I still don’t think I’ve made it – success isn’t a destination it’s just a constant chase.”

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