Tag Archives: Soccer

7 Tips For Dribbling a Soccer Ball

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One of the first skills youth soccer players learn is how to dribble a soccer ball. The unfortunate thing is, many player never get beyond very basic dribbling. When it comes to changing directions, or making a feint on an opposing player, they are at a loss. Your job as the youth soccer coach is to give them the tools to take their dribbling skills to the next level.

Here are 7 tips you can use to help your players develop this valuable skill.

Soccer Tip

1. Maintain Your Balance

As you dribble the soccer ball it is important that you maintain your balance. Keep your feet wide enough that you can quickly stop, start, and change direction. When you play off balance it is impossible to do anything except move forward in a straight line without losing possession of the ball.

2. Keep Your Head Up

When players first learn to dribble they have a tendency to watch their own feet. Unfortunately when they have their head down they cannot see anything that is going on in the field. They have no idea where their teammates are, and they don not see approaching defenders.

Make sure that you work with your players to keep their head up when they are dribbling. Watching their feet is a horrible habit to get into, and it will hamper your players development in other areas of the game.

3. Look Where You Are Going

While it is important to look around to see what is happening on the field, you should not lose focus on where you are going with the ball. When a player stops paying attention to where they are going they can quickly get into trouble. When they see what is in front of them they can make better decisions about what to do with the ball.

4. Study Your Opponents

As players begin to develop they will start to be able to spot the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents. Players have tendencies to play a certain way, and if you are aware of those tendencies you can use that knowledge to your advantage during the game.

For instance, if you see that a player has trouble defending attackers that move to the left, you can instruct your players to cut the ball to the left when they face that defender. While this may not be useful at lower levels, it can give you a nice advantage in older youth soccer games.

5. Use Both Feet

Players that can dribble with both feet are much more difficult to defend. Using both feet give the ball handler the ability to shield the ball better, and they are able to change directions with the ball much more quickly.

6. Don’t Be Predictable

As players start to learn more moves with the ball, some of them will have a favorite move that they use during the game. While this is understandable, it can lead to trouble if they rely onb a single move too much.

When you become predictable it makes it much easier for a defender to know what you are going to do with the ball. Once they know what you are going to do, it is very easy for them to take the ball from you.

7. Pass the Ball

One of the biggest mistakes a youth soccer player can make when dribbling is to miss the opportunity to pass the ball. They try to dribble through traffic, or they allow themselves to get hemmed in on the sideline or in the corner.

One of the fastest ways to move the soccer ball and to spread the defense is to pass the ball. Don’t allow your players to get so confident in their ball handling abilities that they miss open passes.

As a youth soccer coach you need to find ways to get your players plenty of touches on the ball during your practices. These 7 tips will help you to develop your players into talented ball handlers. That put you one step closer to victory.

7 Tips For Dribbling a Soccer Ball

Kicking Your Soccer Ball

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If you really want to learn to kick a soccer ball, you need to determined, persistent and patient. Most importantly, you need practice. To get yourself started, you will need a soccer ball, cleats, and large clear area so that you can practice. Now let’s quickly take a look at some tips to start off.

1) Kicking with your toe should be strictly avoided. It may seriously injure your toe and you’d surely lose control over the ball.

Soccer Tip

2) To avoid slipping and tripping, soccer cleats are recommended.

3) The ball should only be sufficiently pumped, over pumping would only make it difficult to kick.

4) You can give additional lift to the ball by leaning over it while kicking. Also make sure that the ball is under your foot.

5) If you want to kick the ball further, do not stand directly over it. Instead, lean back while kicking to give the ball more height and more power to your kick.

The above tips will certainly give your kicks more strength. Now we shall take a look at how to kick a soccer ball CORRECTLY. Following the easy steps below should definitely help.

Step 1: Your equipment is the most important, a soccer ball (real one!) and soccer shoes. Playing without soccer shoes is not recommended and playing barefoot should be strictly avoided.

Step 2: Now while kicking, take a few steps backward and a step to the side (to the left if kicking with your right foot and vice versa if you are kicking with your left). This way you are using your hips to kick the ball with excess power.

Step 3: Run towards the ball, using your foot which you are not using for the kicks to direct the ball by placing it about six inches from the ball ground level in the direction that you aim to kick it.

Step 4: Always bring your leg back and then push it forward, with your toe pointing towards the ground. Your foot should strike the ball at the point where your shoe laces are.

Step 5: Having your body lean forward in order to push your weight ahead of the body makes the soccer kick more powerful. Leaning back after you kick will help you keep your balance.

Follow these basic steps of soccer and you might just turn out to be a soccer star some day.

Kicking Your Soccer Ball

Soccer Player Nutrition

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When I started to play soccer I didn’t have a clue of what I should eat to prepare for a soccer match. I didn’t know either what to eat after my soccer games or neither how to maintain a rich high carbohydrate diet. In this guide I will present some basic and important nutritional tips that you as soccer player must and should follow in order to perform maximum during your practice or soccer match.

Carbohydrates!

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I cannot explain enough how important this one is. Your performance will depend on a diet that is rich in carbohydrates. With carbohydrate diet you will improve your speed and stamina on the soccer field. The more carbohydrates you eat the more you will be able to stay on top.

Soccer Player Nutrition

The time recommended for consuming a large portion of carbohydrates is not few hours before a game. Instead, you have to consume this portion one day before (that is 24 hours before the start of your match). Still, many players go by the old myth to prepare high carbohydrates meals few hours before the game starts.

A balanced diet may consist of following:

o 50-60% carbohydrates

o 10 % protein

o 20-30% fat

o lots of fluids

Protein is still important

Beside carbohydrates, protein is the second most important part in your soccer diet. Good protein can be found in chicken, fish and milk. Protein will help you to restore new fuel in your muscles and your muscles will get stronger.

Eat Fat!

Fat is good and you should try to eat it often. These are the types that you should eat:

o Omega fat (Fish)

o Lean ground beef

o Red meat (remove the fat)

There are some fat types that you should avoid. These can be found in milk and other similar products.

Soccer Player Nutrition

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

Priceless Tips to Become a Good Soccer Goalie – How to Save a Penalty Kick

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The Soccer Goalie is definitely at a disadvantage when facing a Penalty Kick. The ball is close, the net is big, and the ball is small. However, if you want to become a Good Soccer Goalie, you will have to learn how to save a penalty kick. Luckily for you there are a few tips and tricks you can use to better your odds.


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1) Watch the shooter’s eyes.

Many players will telegraph where they are going to shoot the ball, by looking at their desired target before they shoot the ball.

2) Get in your opponents head.

If you can get into your opponent’s head you may be able to make them lose their focus. There are many things you could do to make this happen (be sure to keep it within reason). Here are just a few:

o Winking at your opponent.

o Blowing him/her a kiss.

o Waving your arms frantically.

3) Watch the planting foot.

As a general rule of thumb, the Soccer ball will usually travel where the planting foot is directed. As a Soccer goalie, you can use this to your advantage. Watch where the planting foot is pointed; favour this side.

4) Be active on the line.

When standing on the line, prior to the kick being taken, you should always be active. Move side to side to throw off the shooter. This will also give you a better chance of reacting quickly. It’s easier to move when you’re on your toes, rather than being flat footed.

5) Favour one side.

You may want to favour one side, leaving an opening on the other side of the goal, to encourage the opponent to shoot to the open corner. When the shot is taken, quickly move to the open side.

Try these tips out next time your practicing your Penalty shots. If some of them work for you, you may want to use them in a game situation. Remember if you want to become a Good Soccer Goalie, you are going to have to learn how to save penalty kicks.

Priceless Tips to Become a Good Soccer Goalie – How to Save a Penalty Kick

How to Become a Professional Freestyle Soccer Performer

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Becoming a professional freestyle soccer performer can turn out to be a difficult task if you don’t know where to start and especially if you lack the frame of mind to do so. So here are a few tips to set you on your way to getting the job you truly desire.


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1. To start a professional freestyle soccer career you must have time. In order to have time you must have money to support yourself while you practice your freestyle soccer tricks. Make sure you have money to pay your rent, to buy your sports clothing and equipment but most importantly your food. You’ll be in an excellent position to develop your skills daily if you don’t have to worry about paying rent and being under pressure to work everyday.

2. Once you find time you must find space. Space is usually easy to find as there are so many parks and sport centres around these days. Make sure the space you find is close to your house so you don’t have to travel long journeys to practice your tricks, otherwise you could lose your motivation.

3. Be very focused. Remember that professionals aren’t made overnight. Don’t let distractions take you off track, life is full of illusions and obstructions that you must overcome completely to live the life of your dreams. You are the master of your own destiny. The reason why most people don’t become famous or rich is because they expect to get everything quickly, and when they don’t they give up.

4. Believe in yourself even when the chips are down. Beliefs can change realities, as Christ put it – you can move mountains with a grain of belief. Even if you become negative about your future, get right back up and push yourself even stronger and you will realise the power your mind has over matter.

5. When you become excellent at freestyle soccer invest in yourself and spend time figuring out ways to make money. You can teach school children and teenagers how to do complex soccer tricks and you can also promote sports products for Nike like Soufiane Touzani and John Farnworth have done in the past. A good way to grow your client base is to market your services, this can be done through the use of business cards, websites and videos.

To your success,

Thiago De Carvalho.

For more tips like these visit www.FreestyleSoccerProfits.com.

How to Become a Professional Freestyle Soccer Performer

Soccer Dribbling Drills to Improve Your Game

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Anyone who is just starting out playing soccer must realize how important it is to develop good dribbling skills. With good dribbling skills, you will be able to control the ball well and you can easily direct it to anywhere you want it to go. If you will watch how some of the best players play, you will notice that most of them are great dribblers.

To be blunt about it, if you will not develop your dribbling skills then there is very little chance that you will be a great soccer player. If you want to develop your dribbling skills, the best thing that you can do is to practice soccer dribbling drills on a regular basis. Like in other kinds of soccer drills, dribbling drills instill the necessary basic movements for a player to dribble the ball well. If you want to know more about how to develop soccer dribbling drills, then it is best that you read through this article.

Soccer Tip

Things to Remember

There are some important things that you need to remember when you do soccer dribbling skills. First of all, you must use all parts of your foot – the inside and outside – when doing the drills in order to develop your whole foot. If you will watch good dribblers, you will notice that they can switch to different parts of their foot when dribbling.

Another thing that you should remember when doing dribbling practice is to maintain the ball at a certain distance from your foot, ideally at a little over one meter from you. This is to simulate a usual situation in a real game where you will normally see yourself squeezing between players with very little space to work on. Dribbling the ball close to you will allow you to develop the ability to pass by a number of opponents without losing possession of the ball.

Feinting

A specific dribbling skill that you must learn if you want to be a good ball dribbler and a good soccer player is feinting. It is the act of stepping over the ball to get pass opponents. If you are already adept with the basics of dribbling then you can already try to practice feinting. When you have mastered feinting, then that is already a sign that you are an exceptional dribbler.

Soccer dribbling drills is very important when you want to be a good dribbler and a good soccer player.

Soccer Dribbling Drills to Improve Your Game

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

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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

Improve Running Speed – 5 Tips on How to Run Faster For Youth Soccer Players

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The ideal athletic soccer player regardless the age or gender for most coaches is strong powerful and fast. Many coaches want their soccer players to improve running speed so that their team can run faster than their opponents. Coaches want players to be first to the ball, first in the air and first to score.


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With these factors in mind here are five key tips to help you improve running speed for total on field soccer domination.

1. Increase glute (“butt”) and quad strength. Research in 2000 (Weyand, Journal of Applied Physiology 2000) proved that greater force applied to the ground resulted in increased top speed. In other words the more pressure your legs put into the ground the faster you run.

As the glute (“butt”) and quad muscles are responsible for driving the leg into the ground it is important to include squats and dead-lifts into a soccer strength training program.

Sprinters are a great example of powerful glutes and quads.

2. The hamstring muscles must have the ability to lengthen. This is important because “tight” hamstring may restrict the movement of the leg after the foot pushes off and swings forward. If a soccer player has tight hamstring muscles they may end up with a tear at top speed.

Consistent stretching and dynamic warm up of the hamstring muscle is crucial to maintaining flexibility. This must be done on a regular basis to avoid injury.

3. The hip flexor muscle must be both flexible and strong. Many hip flexors muscles are put in a shortened position on a day to day basis. Most young soccer players in elementary, junior high and high school are sitting at a desk through out the day. This puts the hip flexors in a shortened position. Over a period of time these muscles become “tight” and weak.

Thus it is important on a regular basis to lengthen the hip flexors and to strengthen them as well. To stretch out the hip flexors put one knee on the ground with knee bent at 90 degrees, hip in neutral and the other knee up at hip height ( hip bent up at 90 degrees.) This is known as the “fencer’s” position. Now lean forward until you feel a stretch in the hip area of the leg with the knee down.

Next you need to increase hip flexor strength. Stand with arms by your side. Then raise one knee to hip height. From there raise the knee to the chest and lower to hip height.

These two exercises will help improve hip flexor strength and flexibility.

4. Soccer players need to have “core” strength. Core strength prevents or minimizes movement of the hip bones. Too much movement at the hip may lead to both hamstring and quadriceps pulls and worse case scenario an anterior cruciate ligament tear in the knee joint.

The simplest exercise to help with core strength is a plank. To perform a plank you need to be face down on your forearms and tips of your toes. Once in this position imagine the “belly button” moving to your back and squeeze the glute muscles.

5. It is important to have some type of a single leg squat included in your exercises to improve running speed. You must remember that running is done a single leg and as you know in soccer there are starts, stops and change of direction. A single leg squat builds strength, power and balance. It is also an excellent exercise for anterior cruciate ligament injury prevention.

In summary if you address these five things you will improve running speed. You will shock and amaze your team mates and opponents unless you share these key tips on how to run faster with them.

Enjoy the process and have fun on the soccer pitch.

Improve Running Speed – 5 Tips on How to Run Faster For Youth Soccer Players

Tips on Choosing the Best Soccer Camps

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Soccer camps are organized to help kids and teens develop their skills and talent in soccer. This is also a source of learning and training who want to play the sport. Kids are encouraged to join camps because it not only helps them develop their skills but to be physically fit and help to build their self-confidence and to meet new friends as well.


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In choosing camps it is important to know its facilities, coaches and organizing principle to know if you are really selecting the right camp. Get to know more on the coach because they will be your mentors and they will provide you the effective tips and important rules of the game that you did to know. Big camps usually provide complete resources that include fitness program and mental performance training while small camps usually don’t; they just focus on the learning of the game.

There are camps that offer not just pure training but also fun training or activities like playing soccer in other places and even let exceptional players play with professional teams which are a good foundation for starters. Soccer camps are usually expensive especially those who have complete facilities but if you just want to spend good time with friends on the camp then better yet choose a cheaper one.

It is also very important to check on the camp environment. You should choose a friendly environment or better yet enroll in a university based camp because it has better benefits and a good exposure to the school. There are so many camps available especially in the US so choosing properly is a good start.

Tips on Choosing the Best Soccer Camps