With the sportspeople bearing the brunt of unscrupulous leadership, Oscar Litonde, popularly known as “Oscar the juggler” has found a silver lining in playing freestyle football as a way to replenish his coffers. Litonde, 27, grew up in Kawangware and started juggling the ball at the age of 7 years.
Inspired by Brazilian star Ronaldinho, Litonde who is an alumnus of St. Anthony, Kitale, reminisces his playing days as a teenager and concedes that were it not for an incessant knee injury, he would not have ventured into freestyle football.
With the sport not being recognized in Kenya, the creative freestyle footballer was forced to showcase his talent on the streets of Nairobi, where he chose a spot and performed for onlookers. To his amusement, passers-by would give him money for his theatrics, and that is one of the many ways he makes a living out of the sport.
Besides street football performances, Oscar performs at wedding events, music concerts, football tournaments and gets advert stints to make a living.
Because of his ball-controlling prowess, Litonde met his idol Ronaldinho last year in Kisumu, where the 2002 World Cup-winning player was the chief guest at the Betika-Ronaldinho Kenya Tour tournament. He had also met him in Brazil in 2009 at a Coca-cola event. Recently, Litonde met Sean Garnier, a world champion in the freestyle sport in January at the Ligi Ndogo grounds.
While the sport is pleasing to the eye, Litonde reveals that there is more than what meets the eye because of the gruelling practice hours that one has to put in. “It is harder than association football because you are alone and you need six hours of practice as opposed to the two hours that a professional footballer puts in,” he says.
with no coach or federation to oversee freestyle football as a sport, Oscar speaks of the challenges he encounters. He is left ruing absconded trips to the Czech Republic, where he was invited to represent Kenya in the biggest freestyle tournament, for lack of funding and laments about mistreatment from the city council workers when performing on the streets.
Despite freestyle football being under-appreciated in Kenya, Oscar encourages the young to take up the sport and approach it as a professional footballer would; with discipline and unrelenting resilience.
Amidst the challenges, Litonde is inexorable in pursuing his dreams. He aims to compete in major freestyle tournaments and eventually start an academy to coach freestyle football.
