Soccer Drills

Soccer is a game of control, mentally, physically and with the ball. The better your technique with the ball the more likely you are going to win the game. The most important thing to have in your team are players who are happy and confident with the ball. Some players aren’t born naturally talented but if they are willing to practice and try hard enough they can be as good as anyone. Below we are going to go through a few soccer drills that will help.

First make sure that your players are happy with the ball, practice kick ups and basic ball control. This can be done as a fun thing for 5 minutes or so or if you prefer it can last a lot longer depending on the players ability and interest levels (you don’t want them to get bored!)

After this dribbling through a set of cones first at a slow pace before later making it competitive with a race scenario. Another favourite is to give each player a ball and put them in a square of roughly 20m squared. Let them dribble around with their ball changing direction every 5-10 seconds. Do this for 5-10 minutes before adding a bit more interest making the players kick out the other players ball, whilst protecting their own! These are fun soccer drills that also make the players conscious of what is around them and concentrate on looking after their own ball.

Now that you have gone through the basics in dribbling and ball retention now would be a good time for a couple of ball control soccer drills. This can be as simple as throwing a ball at a player and getting them to control the ball with their foot, knee, chest or head. (be sure to train on all of these, particularly both the left and right foot as a two footed player is always better than a one footed player) try and get the players to do these soccer drills at a quick pace as if they do it sluggishly in training then they are going to struggle when it comes to the match day!

By combining these fun soccer drills to your own ideas your players ball control and dribbling will improve. You and your players will get more confidence with the ball and this will show in a match situation hopefully on your way to victory!

Being able to take on a player/beat an opponent to create a goal or score yourself is a brilliant skill to have. Every player with this sort of ability loves to show it off by dribbling with the ball whenever they can.

In this section we will be looking at soccer drills specially designed to show the players when and where to run with the ball or dribble. It’s vital that the players understand the best areas of the pitch in which to dribble and attack the oppositions defence. We’ll also look at what should be done once they beat their man as obviously there’s not much point in being able to dribble if you can’t pass, shoot or cross!

A positive mental attitude in these soccer drills are a must as the players will learn that they won’t dribble past a player 100% of the time, to learn to get over failure on the pitch is very important.

In this section of attacking soccer drills we will be looking at :

1. Learning how to dummy, shift weight to pass an opponent
2. Burst of speed into space, change of direction
3. Positive first touch.
4. Head up, accessing options and making the right decisions.