The bicycle kick does not have a single, universally agreed “inventor,” but several South American legends are most often credited with creating or popularizing it, especially in Chile, Peru, and Brazil.

Origins in South America

Many historians and football writers describe the bicycle kick as a distinctly Latin American creation, emerging in Pacific port cities where local players faced British sailors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Stories from both Chile and Peru tell of coastal players experimenting with acrobatic backward kicks as early as the 1890s, long before the move was famous worldwide.

Chilean claim: Ramón Unzaga

Chile’s most cited claim centers on Ramón Unzaga, a Spanish-born Chilean who reportedly performed the move around 1914 in the port city of Talcahuano.

Unzaga’s spectacular overhead kicks became so associated with Chile that Argentine reporters nicknamed the move “la chilena,” linking the bicycle kick with Chilean football culture.

Peruvian legend: Callao chalacos

Peruvian lore places the birth of the bicycle kick in Callao, the country’s main port, during a match against visiting British sailors around 1892.

In these accounts, an unnamed local player of African descent, known broadly as a chalaco , amazed spectators by striking the ball backwards while airborne, creating an early form of the modern overhead kick.

Brazilian star: Leônidas da Silva

Brazil often credits forward Leônidas da Silva, nicknamed the “Black Diamond,” with inventing or at least defining the bicycle kick for global audiences.

Leônidas used the move in the 1930s, including at the 1938 World Cup, where his acrobatic goals helped cement the bicycle kick’s reputation as one of football’s most spectacular sights.

So who “invented” it?

Because similar overhead kicks appeared in different South American ports over several decades, most historians say no single person can be definitively named as the sole inventor.

The fairest answer is that the bicycle kick evolved in late‑19th and early‑20th‑century South America, with Unzaga (Chile), anonymous chalacos (Peru), and Leônidas da Silva (Brazil) among its key pioneers and popularizers.

TL;DR: If someone asks “who invented the bicycle kick,” the historically safest reply is: It likely emerged in South America, with early versions in Peru and Chile, and later global fame thanks to Brazil’s Leônidas da Silva.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.