New record for former Cuban footballer Erick Hernández

July 17, 2023

Former Cuban footballer Erick Hernández broke another world record for ball control this Saturday, July 15, by keeping the ball in play for three hours and four minutes while sitting on the ground with 1.5 kilograms of weight tied to each ankle.

The new record surpassed his previous one by just two minutes, when he remained in the same position for three hours and two minutes with similar weights.

This attempt brought together several followers of the 56-year-old former athlete at the Copacabana Hotel located in Havana, who also holds multiple ball control records by striking the sphere with his head.

The latest of these tests was last year when Hernández kept striking the ball for 1 hour, 9 minutes and 50 seconds.

In April of last year, he struck the ball 351 times with his head in one minute while standing and surpassed the record held by Chinese player Gao Chong, with 341.

Known as "the Master," Hernández holds several homologated Guinness records: in 2005, for touching the ball 319 times in one minute with his head, and in 2009, when he controlled the ball with his thighs for one hour and 28 minutes.

In 2020, from his home due to mandatory isolation from the pandemic, he repeated his appearance in the Guinness Book, when he struck the ball with his head 188 times in just 30 seconds, breaking by one the previous record, which he himself had homologated in 2011.

Hernández began practicing ball control in 1994, a tradition that his brother Douglas had first practiced, the precursor of this specialty in Cuba.

Since then he has proven his skill at touching the ball with almost every part of his body, achieving control records with his thighs, knees, feet, head, sitting, standing, or running 100 meters and marathons.