Practicing soccer drills is essential if you want to grow your skills and play at that next level. It is imperative not just to practice these drills when you have organized practice with your team; training on your own time is crucial to becoming an elite soccer player. You must also practice different parts of your game, such as passing, shooting, and conditioning. Bellow, we will overview essential soccer drills to do on your own.
Soccer Drills:
Shooting Drills
Shooting is the most enjoyable part of soccer because it leads to scoring goals which everyone loves to do. Practicing shooting is essential to becoming an elite soccer player because regardless of the position you play on the field, the skill to shoot will elevate your game. Take time to set up soccer drills where you shoot from different angles at the goal and aim for other parts of the net. Also, practice shooting on the run, as it is a crucial part of the game; you won’t always have the opportunity to shoot at the goal from a stagnant position. Practicing one-touch shooting and penalty kicks will also be very beneficial in developing your ability to shoot. If a soccer net is not accessible, go to a local school with a soccer net or set up targets on a wall you can aim for.
Passing Drills
Passing is an essential skill to have within the game of soccer because passing controls the passing of the game. If you have someone to practice soccer drills with, you can simulate drills you run in soccer practice. However, we will highlight drills you can do when you are practicing by yourself. When practicing by yourself, the wall will become your best friend as it is a great place to practice various accurate passing drills. A tremendous passing drill to do against the wall is a give-and-go drill. Aim at the wall on an angle, pass it against it, and continue moving while repeating the process to simulate passing up the field. Another great drill to practice is doing passing with no touch returns. Pass the ball against the wall rather than touching it when it comes back to you, let it cross your body as the ball is coming towards you, turn your body, collect the ball with a turn, and repeat the process. Continue this process while doing 10-15 reps per foot to reap the maximum benefits of this drill. You can also do wall passing with a cone; set up a cone 5-7 feet away from the wall. Pass the ball against the wall when the ball comes back, touch the ball using the inside of your foot, then cross the ball against your body and pass with the other foot. Switch feet every 15 repetitions and do this drill with outer foot touches to develop your passing to elite levels.
Dribbling Drills
Dribbling is crucial in soccer to control the ball and elude defenders. Here are various drills you can easily set up to do soccer drills by yourself. A drill you can do to improve your dribbling is a straight cone dribbling drill. Set up 5 – 10 cones and run from one end to the other between the cones keeping control of the ball with quick close touches. Another great drill to improve your dribbling skills is back-and-forth cone dribbling. Set up five cones; start at the first cone sprinting well, dribbling to the second cone, then turning back to the first cone and running to the third cone. This drill improves dribbling because it is high intensity as well as conditioning. Overall there are a variety of dribbling drills you can do with cones that will vastly improve your dribbling ability in the game.
Conditioning Drills
Conditioning is crucial in soccer because a soccer player will run 6 miles in a game. So you need to have the conditioning to run for long periods. To improve your conditioning, incorporate agility and quickness drills such as obstacle course or ladder drills. Set up a ladder, cones, or balls you can run through; when you come up to a marker, make a quick cut, change in direction or move quicker. This will improve agility and feet work, and doing multiple reps of this drill will improve your conditioning. Also, sprinting drills will improve your conditioning; set up two cones or markers and sprint cone to cone for a set amount of time. The more you do this drill, the more you increase the repetitions you expect yourself to do, so your constantly increasing your conditioning. Lastly, another simple way to improve your conditioning is running drills, just going for timed runs or running with the ball for a long time will improve your fitness.
Conclusion
Overall, soccer drills on your own will be beneficial for developing your soccer skills, allowing you to grow as an elite-level player. You can do various drills in various areas of the game to improve and be an elite-level player. We are recruiting for soccer. Please fill out this form to get the opportunity to try out for our academy.
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