Remember when Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid made Daniel perform the same move over and over again until it became instinct for Daniel? The most successful soccer teams and players perform the basics instinctively to win by doing it better than the opposing team. If you watch a soccer game, it can be broken down into 3 basic parts:
- Control
- Dribbling
- Passing (Shooting)
I believe that youth soccer organizations need to spend as much time as it takes to teach control, dribbling, and passing until it becomes instinct. Its great to teach a kid to kick a ball as hard as possible at the goal, or kick the ball and run as fast as you can down the sideline, or teach them to defend by hitting a player as hard as they can; but if they don’t have a soft touch to control the ball, and be able to dribble the ball within 2 feet and touch it with every 1-2 steps, and be able to accurately pass the ball to their teammate or accurately pass (shoot) the ball into the goal; everything else is a disadvantage.
I know it takes time to train the basics, but coaches should spend the first third of the season strictly focusing and engrossing their players so they can become black belts of the basics. There isn’t an age group too old that they don’t have to work on the basics. It doesn’t hurt for a coach to spend the whole 2 hour practice on passing and correcting bad techniques. It wouldn’t hurt to spend multiple practices for several weeks having players stand 30 feet from the coach and having the coach hit hard ground balls at their feet to force them to control the ball no more than 2 feet from their body, moving them closer and closer until they are 5 feet away from the coach and controlling hard hit balls at their feet. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to line players up on a line and have cones 20 away and have them dribble to the cone hitting the ball with every step starting slow and increasing speed over time. The adage, practice makes perfect is true, but more accurately is, practice creates instinct.
SoccerMist 