The Bicycle Kick

[AreliusIV]

Bicycle kick or overhead kick, also known as the Chilena or Chalaca in most of Latin America, is an expert move in football, that is made by throwing the body up into the air with the legs moving as if pedaling a bicycle. The player then kicks the ball backward over his head.

There are two major situations (apart from showing off) where the bicycle kick would be useful in a game situation:

When the player is desperate to remove the ball from the area near his defending goal, but he has his back from the way he wants to go, and the ball is bouncing around and thus difficult to control.

If the player has his back to goal and is in the opponent's penalty area or nearby, a ball bouncing at head height may be bicycle-kiced as a shot.

Who invented the move is unclear, but it has been credited to a number of people. Leônidas da Silva of Brazil from the 1930s and Ramon Unzaga, a Spaniard player playing for Chile are often cited, but he himself attributed the invention of this move to another Brazilian player, Petronilho de Brito. Additionally, Aston Villa Chairman Doug Ellis claimed in his autobiography that he was the inventor of the kick.

According to the Ramon Unzaga account, he created the kick during the South American Championship of that year, hosted by Argentina. In 1927, Chilean club team Colo-Colo conducted a European tour and Chilean player David Arellano exhibited the move in Spain.

See this compilation of bicycle kicks:
http://footyclips.com/mov/my055tx3jdad.html