Soccer skills and techniques separate the best from the rest. The smallest 5-year-old soccer player typically starts out without a lot of skill, let alone technique, which is the ability to carry out a skill well or in different ways. Years of dedication produce players such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, considered two of the best technicians in soccer, particularly for their phenomenal dribbling abilities at speed. Good coaching combined with lots of playing time and dedicated practice can result in your acquisition of tiptop soccer skill and polished techniques.
Soccer Skills
Basic soccer skills include dribbling, receiving or trapping, passing, shooting, heading and defense. Goalkeeping demands an additional set of skills, including catching, punching, throwing and punting. Players in the under-5 bracket begin with dribbling, which naturally appeals to children, and progress over time to learning how to share the ball by passing. Heading is considered safe for children age 10 and older, as the neck and spine become stronger at this time, according to the American Youth Soccer Organization, which discourages purposeful heading for under-10s.
Soccer Techniques
At a higher level of complexity are techniques. For example, the soccer tot who can successfully pass the ball to a coach or parent needs to mature into the youth player who can cross the ball, passing it in the air from the corner into the area in front of the goal, 25 yards away. The elite youth player can cross even more technically; she knows how to precisely chip or drive the cross to a designated space to meet a selected teammate's head and create a goal. Passing technique requires knowing how to deliver the ball to a moving target, calculating how hard to strike it and at what angle to place it to intersect the runner, notes Jim Lennox, director of coaching emeritus of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, and his coauthors of "Soccer Skills & Drills."
Time Frame
The development of soccer techniques takes many years, making soccer a late-specialization sport, Lennox notes in "Soccer Skills & Drills." "Soccer players do not mature into complete players until well into adulthood," he writes. The optimal age for a professional player is 28 or 29 years, or more for goalkeepers. This contrasts with sports such as gymnastics, an early-specialization sport that can lead to success in the teen years.
Expert Insight
To develop your technique, spend hours practicing away from the formal practice session, recommends "Soccer Skills & Drills." Formal practice doesn't allow time for specific technique work, so your level of motivation plays a strong role. A Messi or Ronaldo becomes good by working hardest when no one else is watching. Find a pickup game or work with a friend on the techniques of shooting: head over ball, stiff ankle, toes pointed down, eyes on the ball. Work on your dribbling techniques: cutbacks, the Cruyff turn and back heels. Bend passes and shots by hitting the ball off-center. And don't neglect defense: work to tackle the ball away from opponents without fouling and use your footwork and body positioning to steer ball handlers away from the center of the field.
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