How to Master Soccer Skills

How do you master a soccer skill? Some would simply say “practice”. That would constitute a good answer. After all, practice makes perfect. However, given that the training field is a completely different environment from the match field, it is necessary to delve a little deeper into the question.

At this stage its important to understand that we are discussing soccer the game, as in when playing matches. We are not talking about freestyle football. In the latter the objective is to perform tricks to entertain an audience. When playing a match, the objective of any trick or skill must be to help your team to win, either indirectly by aiding your team to keep possession, or directly by scoring a goal. Indeed, any trickery is only useful if it contributes toward your team winning the match. Therefore it can be argued that it is easier to learn a complicated trick for the sole purpose of impressing an audience than it is to master a more simple skill with the purpose of contributing to winning a soccer match.

One only has to watch a few short clips on Youtube of Ronaldinho bamboozling his match opponents to understand the sort of skills I’m referring to. Perhaps you have watched one such trick several times and are endeavouring to imitate it. It may only take you an hour, or perhaps only a few minutes before you are able to perform the same move. Your next step would be to test how many times attempts at the skill turn out to be successful. When you manage to pull it off nine times from ten attempts, by all means pat yourself on the back, but you are still a long way off from having mastered the skill. You still haven’t performed it in a match situation. Now I’m going to be generous and tell you that when you have successfully performed your skill in an actual soccer match for the first time, you are entitled to consider yourself to have mastered that particular skill. However, I’m also telling you that that won’t happen for a long time!

Your next step is to build a bridge. A long one! In my opening paragraph I mentioned the vast difference in the environment of the training pitch to that of the match pitch. If you can perform your skill successfully on your own, it does not mean you will pull it off in a soccer match with the added pressure of opposition players trying to win the ball from you. You need to bridge the gap, by gradually adapting the environment of your training field to match the competitive game environment as closely as possible. How? You could appoint a team-mate or friend to vigorously try to win the ball off you as you attempt your skill. When you are successful more often than when you aren’t, you could appoint two team-mates to oppose you, then three, and so on. When you can under a considerable amount of pressure, then perhaps you just might be able to pull it off in an actual soccer match. However, I did say the bridge is long, and you well might be a long time on it before you reach the other side. In fact, you probably won’t pull it off in a match at all, while you’re trying to, and the harder you try, the more you may fail. It’s not my intention to discourage you. By all means give it your best shot. You just might succeed, and if you do, you will have exceeded normal expectations. Just don’t be disheartened when you don’t succeed, because at this stage that is par for the course.

So when can you expect to have mastered your skill, in a soccer match? The good news is that when you have worked at something as hard and as often as we’ve just discussed, it becomes embedded in your brain. It becomes a familiar pathway to your nervous system, a reflex action of your muscles. It will appear on its own, unsummonsed . In other words, you will only realise you did it after you have done it. The skill you have worked so hard to learn has become second nature. You have mastered it!

So, what next? One-trick ponies don’t do well for long. Its time to learn a new move. At least now you’ll know what it takes.