It only took Daniel Wassef ten months to achieve the goal of a lifetime.
Although the Covid-19 crisis has been a thorn on everyone’s side this past year, the quarantine period has motivated people to unleash their creativity and try things that they’ve never tried before. This is exactly what 23-year-old Daniel Wassef did when he started practicing his soccer toe taps, only he went beyond. Daniel managed to do 151 toe taps in one minute, breaking the world record, a feat that he would’ve never accomplished if not for the pandemic.
“I was very bored at home. I had no creativity in myself” explained Daniel, discussing his emotions at the start of the COVID confinement. “Eventually, I just told myself ‘why not do some soccer tricks on my street’. My neighbor has a basketball hoop, so I asked him if I could borrow it. I started kicking the ball into the net backwards, and eventually, I got it in.”
Accomplishing such a trick is no easy task, and Daniel wanted that to be recognized. He applied for a Guinness World Record but was rejected. Thankfully, this rejection only motivated him even more. “I told myself that if I was capable of doing that, why stop there? That’s when I decided to try to do the most soccer toe taps in one minute.”
While some people train for years to beat a record, Daniel managed to break it in only ten months, while being out of practice. “I quit playing soccer for the city five years ago due to my age. I still play for my local church team but that got cancelled because of the pandemic”
Daniel has also received a great amount of attention since his accomplishment. “I got 137 comments on my Facebook, and 196 likes. People keep telling me things like don’t stop, and that this is my future and to keep on going, and I agree with them. Lots of people want me to do livestreams on TV, which I plan to do on June 5th. I want to use this opportunity to inspire people to move on with their lives and make them say ‘life isn’t as bad as it seems. He did something unexpectedly, so I can too’. Whether that’s passing an exam, making it to school on time, it’s all in the same phase”.
While Daniel has achieved lots of success over the course of these past few months, he doesn’t plan on taking any breaks. “I want to break more records. My goal is to reach two more. I already beat the soccer toe taps. Now I’m going for the most football hot steps, and after that, I’m going to try for the most consecutive windmill turns bouncing a football on one foot in one minute. If I can keep this up, maybe I can be like Ashrita Furman, who holds the most world records”.
Daniel finished by giving some words of motivation. “Anything is possible, as long as you keep practicing. If you are going through tough times, keep going through. It will only make you a better person.”
