Soccer in Sun and Shadow

The Bicycle Kick

Ramón Unzaga invented the move on the field at the Chilean port of Talcahuana: body in the air, back to the ground, he shot the ball backwards with a sudden snap of his legs, like the blades of scissors.

It was some years later when this acrobatic act came to be called the chilena. In 1927 when club Colo-Colo traveled to Europe and striker David Arellano performed it in the stadiums of Spain, Spanish journalists cheered the splendor of this unknown gambol, and they baptized it chilena because, like strawberries and the cueca, it had come from Chile.

After several flying goals Arellano died that year, in the stadium at Valladolid, killed in a fatal encounter with a fullback.