Tag Archives: Skills

Soccer Skills – How To Improve Your Soccer Skills Today

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Soccer skills are hands down the number one reason why soccer players will potentially move on to play at the next level. For some players however it is the sole reason that they do not. As a former professional player, I can say that most people train ineffectively and thus do not reach their ultimate goals for playing soccer.

But what do I mean by that exactly? Well for starters it comes down to maximizing the time you train. I’ve trained hundreds of players personally that went on to become great players. However, when they started there was one commonality to all of them. They did not know how to effectively skyrocket their soccer skills.

Soccer Tip

The reason for this is because they had never been taught this. Listen to this point carefully and as it is the main idea that I want to get across to you. If you want your soccer skills to leap frog other soccer players, you have to do this individually.  I cannot stress this enough. Do not expect to do improve greatly just by showing up for practice.

This is where most players go completely wrong. Think about this. How do you expect to improve drastically if everybody you know is doing the same drills? The answer is you will not. It takes that extra drive. It takes the right mindset of knowing that when you are training all by yourself or even with a few other motivated players you are practicing more than your opponent.

This alone is the reason why your touch will get sharper, your accuracy will improve drastically, and your shot will be harder and more fine tuned. When you go to practice you are learning team oriented drills that will help team chemistry but rarely will you fine-tune your personal soccer skills.

Think of it this way. Every soccer player should be observant to some degree and I’m sure you know who the “game-changing” players are on your team. You know who has the best shot, who will take free kicks, and who is the captain. Likewise, you should understand what areas of your own game you need to work on.

Do you want a better shot? Do you want to learn to run faster or kick more accurately? This is the reason why individual training is key. When you are in practice you have to perform drills that your coaches think the entire team needs to learn to improve on, like attacking or transitioning out of the back. Sadly most coaches do not even know do this even though they should.

Simply put, if you know how to improve your soccer skills you can literally leapfrog other players with your soccer skills.

People tend to ask me what is the number one way to improve my game and I really have to say it is two things. One is to improve your speed. You can overcome a lot of mistakes by simply being faster than your opponent.

This begs the question that is a huge myth. Can you teach speed? Absolutely!

How do you think that Olympic athletes improve? Did you think it was by accident? To put it this way, in two off-seasons I improved my 40-yard dash by one second. Now, one second may not sounds like a lot but in a 40 yard dash it is a huge improvement.

When I first started training I was a pretty fast sprinter. By the time I finished speed training before I went off to college I ran the equivalent sprinting time of an NFL wide receiver. I ran a 4.33 40-yard dash. So you can definitely improve speed and you can do it rather quickly if you know how to like I did.

Secondly, you need to improve your first touch. Wayne Rooney, of Manchester United, was interviewed saying the most important part of your game is your first touch. By mastering that you will have more time to figure out your next few moves. The ball will be exactly where you need it to be all the time. A simple way to start improving your first touch soccer skill is by juggling.

Juggling gives you the opportunity to multitask your training. You learn to concentrate, trap, manipulate the ball, and muscle memory all at the same time.

There are countless other ways however for other ways to improve but most soccer players just really do not understand how exactly to fast track their progress.

Soccer Skills – How To Improve Your Soccer Skills Today

3 Best Ways to Improve Soccer Skills Individually

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If you’re looking for ways to improve soccer skills individually, you’ve come to the right place. I know that soccer team practice sometimes just isn’t enough if you want to become great. Just take a look at most of the great soccer players in activity. They always say that they spend a lot of hours off-pitch improving their soccer skills, which makes them so good in matches. But simply training after hours isn’t enough, you need to train intelligently, after a rigorous program.

Best Ways to Improve Soccer Skills – DVD Programs

Soccer Tip

There’s a lot of these babies around the Internet these days, so if you’re planning on buying a DVD program for individual soccer practice, make sure it’s a serious author that created it and it’s not some lame compilation of soccer highlights with subtitles saying “Do this and you’ll be great”.

3 Best Ways to Improve Soccer Skills Individually

A quality DVD program is a great way to improve soccer skills, because it allows a certain level of interactivity to your learning. It’s not like learning from a TV show, because with DVD’s you can go straight to the chapter that interests you, you can go back and review stuff over and over again until you get the picture.

Best Ways to Improve Soccer Skills – Skill Focusing

If you notice that there’s a certain area in your game that isn’t on par with your other skills, focus on it to get it on level terms. Having an unbalanced skill set is extremely damaging to your game. For example, you could be very fast and strong, but if you don’t have good ball control, you won’t be able to use your physical skills for anything.

Same goes with players that are extremely technical but very weak on their feet, so improving your soccer skills in a balanced way is best. Also, you could focus on your best skill not your worst one. Are you a good long range shooter? Make that your trademark. Practice long shots over and over again and your teammates will soon know that they need to create space for your shots and you’ll be able to score more often. You could also make a trademark of your heading, your passing, your set pieces and so forth.

Best Ways to Improve Soccer Skills – Variation

Never allow a particular exercise or drill become boring routine, or you risk entering a stalemate with your soccer skills. Whatever you’re practicing, go for alternative techniques. For example, if you’re practicing dribbling, don’t just focus on a single type of dribble, effective as it may be. You will need to have a varied repertoire of dribbles if you want to stand up to your different adversaries.

In conclusion, you will probably want to combine these three methods, not just use them separately. Use a DVD program to cover the theoretical aspects of your practice and use the other two as practical methods of getting your skills up. You should be gaining an edge in no time!

3 Best Ways to Improve Soccer Skills Individually