Jack Downer

Whole different ball game

After an injury halted the 23-year-old’s dreams of a pro football career, his fancy footwork made him a world champion in a game he never knew existed

Words JESSICA HOLLAND Photography MARK ROBINSON

Injury ruined Jack Downer’s dreams of becoming a pro footballer in the traditional sense when he was just 14. But fast-forward nine years and he’s found another way to make a living from kicking a ball, one that offers more creativity and autonomy. It has seen him play a rooftop match alongside David Beckham, receive coaching from Frank Lampard, and gain YouTube fame via the Adidas docuseries Tango Squad FC. He also has more than a million TikTok followers who obsessively watch videos of him playing or training.

The Kent-born athlete is a star of panna, an intense one-on-one football match in which you win by kicking the ball between your opponent’s legs, executing a nutmeg or ‘panna’. The tricky footwork involved makes the sport a perfect fit for short videos – whether viral social-media posts or ad campaigns – and Downer’s YouTube films alone earn him enough to pay his London rent.

In 2020, he cemented his status as a panna superstar by winning the Super Ball World Championship in Prague, and this year he’ll be part of the biggest global five-a-side tournament, Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five. Having won a place in Jr’s Global Five in 2020 as part of the Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five online competition, Downer will be one of seven players taking on a team that includes the eponymous Brazilian footballing legend. Still only 23, Downer has proved he’s a disciplined athlete with big ambitions, from helping his sport blow up to nutmegging Neymar Jr himself.

the red bulletin: When did you start playing panna?

jack downer: At 14, I was captain of a local football team and getting interest from scouts at Tottenham, West Ham, Charlton… Then, during a kids vs adults game, someone just stamped on my foot. My toenail was splintered and had to be removed, and I had ligament damage. I was walking with a limp, then the knee on my other leg went. I was out for eight months, by which time all the interest [from the scouts] was gone.

That must have been tough…

I never played 11-a-side again – I decided I had to take a different route. My mum tricked me into going to a local panna club, which was three kids playing in a town hall. A younger kid nutmegged me twice. That week, I watched [panna videos on] YouTube and I played for three hours every night. When I went back to the club, I beat that kid. I’ve trained like that ever since, for eight years.

How did the sport originate?

The word is from Suriname [in South America], but the sport is from Holland. Street football is huge in Holland, and panna [also borrows from] one-vs-one basketball. It’s now massive in Denmark, Germany, Japan and Russia, too. In London, it’s tough – people still think it’s a party trick. But it’s growing.

When did you realise you were good at it?

I started an Instagram account, @streetpanna, to watch videos and share my progression. Within a week, I had 4,000 followers. Pretty quickly I’d reached a high level of intricacy. But I wanted to compete. In 2014, after playing for a year, me and my dad drove to a tournament in Brussels in this tiny car. I only just got out of the group stage. Six months later, I was at my first world championship in Rotterdam.

What did your mates think?

No one understood. I’d been studying [the sport] after school, at school. I wasn’t going to parties, I was training in the rain on my own. I had one pair of leather shoes, but when I wore holes in them I had to put Tesco bags on my feet just so I could train. I’d find multistorey car parks an hour away and walk there to train on the fifth floor. But by the end of my time at school I’d created a panna club and everyone came.

Can you see panna becoming more mainstream in the UK?

It could be the next skateboarding. It’s one-vs-one, it’s in a cage, it’s football but it’s like MMA. And it’s international. I went to Bali with my girlfriend on holiday and ended up running soccer camps because somehow the kids knew who I was.

Are you excited about the Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five tournament?

I’m super excited to be on the team facing Neymar Jr. He’s one of the only players nowadays who’s applying the skills in-game. I’m dreaming about facing him. I’ll have to try to nutmeg him, but really I just want to be on that pitch and learn. If I gain his respect, I’ll be proud.

Do you now look back differently on your injury as it forced you to take this more innovative path?

I’m not grateful for it, but I’m proud of how I dealt with it. The career path I’ve taken wasn’t something that existed when I started. I was just following a passion. Head to redbull.com/int-en/eventseries/neymar-jrs-five/ for all the latest UK information on how to get your chance to face Neymar Jr

“I had to put Tesco bags on my feet just so I could train”