Raquel Freestyle: the athlete who conquered the world with her embaixadinhas –

She is among the top 10 most influential athletes in Brazil, according to Ibest, alongside athletes like Marta, from soccer and has millions of followers on social networks. spoke with Raquel Freestyle to introduce you to this female athlete that you should keep an eye on!

FREESTYLE FOOTBALL?

That’s right. Different from the game we are used to, with 11 players on the field trying to score against the rival team, freestyle football is a modality where the dispute is carried out individually, the famous “one against one”, where what counts are the maneuvers — and not the goals.

According to the sport’s official website, Freestyle Football (also called Freestyle Football) was influenced by the player Maradona and only gained importance from 2005 onwards, perhaps because of the advertisements and publicity campaigns made by the players Ronaldinho Gaúcho, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robinho that had great impact in the media.

Raquel also works as a model / (Press Relations/Disclosure)

THE BEGINNING FOR RACHEL

Today, she has more than 3 million followers distributed across social networks, with 1.5 million on Instagram, 1.1 million on TikTok, 9,166 on Twitter and 1.77 million on Youtube. But the beginning was not easy.

Born Raquel Tateishi Benetti, in the city of São Paulo in 1990, Raquel started doing embaixadinhas encouraged by her father, Nilton Benetti, at the age of 8. Also at the age of 8, she started playing soccer, where she played for the Corinthians under 20 women’s team for three years.

As of 2009, aged 19, Raquel started working as a model and modeling campaigns and events and, in 2015, she was the only female representative from Brazil invited to the Wass Freestyle Cup, which is a competition approved by the International Federation of Freestyle Football.

But Raquel reports that she already felt a lot of difficulty to get where she got to. Machismo has always been a major barrier for her to grow in the area.

“Prejudice against women in football is huge, not even my parents supported me, the lack of sponsorship in the sport also hurt me a lot”, says Raquel.

WORKS IN SPORTS

Also according to the official website, the “freestylers”, as they are called, end up making a career with presentations on television, sporting events, fairs and congresses, game breaks, concerts and corporate and business events. And for Raquel, it’s no different.

His last major job was for the campaign to launch the Ligue1 kit, the biggest French league that brought together talent from France and Brazil, for the launch of the new season (which started on August 6th).

The athlete is also always in various advertising actions of brands such as Nike, for example.

With the sport, Raquel has already been to countries like Monaco, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and 14 other countries, to participate in competitions and even to speak about her experiences.

On her YouTube channel, she makes content with big names in the sport, including current world champion Ricardo Chanini.

NEXT STEPS

His next career goals are to write a book about his life, become a motivational speaker and break the world record for bouncing and entering the Guinness Book.

His intention is to break the record of 55,197 hits on the ball without interruption established by Milene Domingues in 1997, and also the time (8 hours and 24 minutes) established by Claudia Martin, in 2006.

And we at are keeping an eye on following this trajectory.