Meet Gui
“I’ve been crazy about soccer since I was a kid,” says Gui, who frequents the cement courts and makeshift street pitches of São Paulo, Brazil. “I spent most of my time with the ball. I’d sleep with it. In the house I would dribble past the furniture, my dad got really angry,” he laughs.
“I’d take the ball with me everywhere I went. People called me crazy because I’d get home filthy.”
Gui S.
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Gui takes his soccer seriously, training with an academy team and competing in city leagues, but he also seeks out pickup games for the unlimited creativity and connection they offer. “We go to a dead-end street, we improvise and start playing,” he says. “When we’re done, we never go home. We always sit down and talk. We talk about our lives.”
“Soccer is not only about the sport, it brings friends together, it brings joy.”
For Gui, street soccer is both an outlet and a teacher. “It’s almost like therapy for me,” he says, and lists everything the free flowing, open games have taught him—ideals like respect, character, forgiveness. “Issues I have, it’s street soccer that draws me out of them, that allows me to let go for a bit,” he says.
Street soccer also sharpens skills that a coach can’t teach, like the agility and precision that were the inspiration for the Phantom Vision 2 IC. As Gui puts it, “Those things we learn on the streets we take to the futsal court or the grass pitch, and then we do it there. We do it because we like it, because it’s beautiful.”