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Soccer Ball Control

"Fail to prepare, prepare to fail." Roy Keane

Intro to soccer ball control

There are four parts of your foot that you will generally use for controlling the ball. These are; inside, outside, the sole, and the instep. You may also use your chest or thigh to get control over the ball.

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To improve your soccer ball control you will need to understand that practice is the way to success. To illustrate a real world example I want you to consider this: When you started to learn how to write you felt that every sentence took a day to complete. However, after a year of practice you even managed to write a short story about your summer trip. Today, after several years of practice you are able to write a sentence in only few seconds.

The point with this example is to make your realize that the more effort you put in something, the better results you will get. You can’t expect to have great ball control if you don’t practice. To help you out I have created this article to give you ideas on how to improve your ball control. Following are the most common used methods for soccer ball control.

Chest

This is the largest area of your body. It may hurt a little while practicing on your chest control especially if the ball is hard. To avoid this you should try to be relaxed and let the ball cushion on your chest just like landing on a pillow. This method of controlling the ball is especially useful in situations with little space and many opponents around you.


Thigh

This part of your body is very effective for controlling the ball when you have an opponent behind you. The part of the thigh that you will use to control the ball can be marked just about the bottom of your shorts.




Foot

As you already know there are four parts of your foot that you will generally use for controlling the ball. Let’s take a closer look at these…

Inside: The inside part of your foot is the one that you will use most while playing soccer. If you are new to soccer you will probably use this part of foot most frequently.




Outside: If you are new to soccer you should try to use the inside part of your foot as often you can. It will be easier for you to set up the ball then if you were using other parts of your foot (outside or instep). Keep in mind that you can squeeze the ball to the outside of your body with very little effort of foot readjustment. This is achieved with a smooth movement which can also disguise your intention to an opponent. This is the part you should use while running with the ball.

Instep: This part of your foot is usually effective when a ball is dropping and you have time to gain control over it without pressure from opponents. You may also use the instep part when trying to steal the ball back from your opponent with a slide tackle



Sole: The sole part of your foot is great for indoor soccer but in regular outside soccer it is not so efficient comparing the the others three mentioned (inside, outside and instep). However, some soccer moves like 360 or Ferenc Puskas will force you to use this part of foot.







Return from Soccer Ball Control to Soccer Training Guide



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