Soccer Practice Games: A Guide To Shooting Techniques
What if I told you that young players enjoy the soccer practice games the most when they are scoring goals. Yes, you must make it a point to include large number of opportunities for them to practice scoring. There are numerous options that can be exercised to create opportunities from them. For example: small-sided games, full-field scrimmages, and shooting drills.
During small sided games and full field scrimmages, it’s your responsibility to keep altering the various ways to encourage extra goal scoring. Add in such games that don’t need a goalie to play or limit the goalie’s movement within the predefined lines. There is another way of increasing the possibility of goal scoring by broadening the goalpost being used or else by adding up more goals.
In soccer training, when players develop their shooting technique and tactical knowledge, goal creation also increases. What you can do is bring in shooting techniques quite early in the kids developing stage but stress them more during the later stages, just as in passing skills.
Doing soccer drills is also one of the methods to make the players skilled at shooting techniques. Players become skilled at shooting the ball accurately and score many more goals by way of these shooting drills. It is therefore important that you encourage your kids to become skilled at shooting the ball precisely.
In your soccer exercises, coach the players how to strike the ball appropriately while shooting it. Players are allowed to take shots from a close range repeatedly with the inside of the foot. When the inside of the feet is used, it has a greater precision. When the situation is such that more strength is needed to hit the ball, ask the players to strike the ball using the instep of the foot, with toes pointed downwards and ankle locked.
The height of the shot is solely dependent on how the non-kicking foot is positioned. So players should be taught to position the non kicking foot a little ahead of the ball to keep the shot low. Remove all distractions for example moving balls, moving shooters, or defenders to help the players focus only on striking the ball.
You can start the drill progression in soccer practice games with a stationery ball and a stationery shooter. As you move on with the shooting techniques, increase the challenge by putting the shooter in action before he/she hits the ball. This shift will alienate from the accuracy of the striking efforts at first, because the player’s visualization must serve a double purpose.
On one hand, it allows the player kicking the ball to find some space in the direction of the ball and on the other, helps them put their foot right where the ball is.
As the players gain confidence, create a game like situation where both the player and the ball are in motion. Once their shooting ability improves, serve balls at different levels and speeds.
So there you have it! Create goal creation opportunities for your players in soccer practice games and make the most of your training sessions. You can join our youth soccer coaching community for more in-depth knowledge on youth soccer.
Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Fun Soccer Drills.
