Every player wants to continually improve their footballing skills to either impress their friends, their family or their club. For all of these reasons, this is what really drives a child to improve their footballing ability.
We all watch/play football hoping to be the next Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi who play week in, week out for the biggest clubs in the world. They have dominated the game for many years now ever since they were in their teens. So the question is, with practice, you could be up there competing with the very best.
We have listed some key tips on helping you improve your football skills at home to help you be the standout player in your club or classroom.
Table of Contents
Below is a list of a starter pack to improve your football skills:
1) Keeping The Ball Close To You When You Dribble
This is arguably the most important step to improving as a footballer and this is because you see every professional player being able to control the ball. Therefore, it is important that this is worked on first as this provides you with better stability and control throughout your game.
The first step would be to purchase our highly recommended dribbling cones so you can improve your small touches in and around the cones.
Line up the cones in a straight line, 1m away from each other and once you get comfortable you can reduce the distance to 75cm and so on. This will help your ability to control and dribble the ball using small touches.
It is also important to try and use different parts of your feet so you can learn to control and dribble the ball with the inside and outside of your foot.
2) Running With The Ball
This along with dribbling is also a key factor in any game of football. This is because you want to be able to dribble around the players and if you are a striker, one-on-one. Then you will need to be able to run fast whilst having control over the ball. Therefore, we will continue to use the cones and football for this drill. Set the cones 10m away and practice only taking one touch to reach the end of the cone.
As you begin to improve, you can then begin setting the cones further away to 20m and taking 2 touches. Realistically, you want to take one touch for every 10m as a standard guide but in a real game, you won’t have cones marked out. Therefore, you need to practice what it feels like to dribble these distances whilst taking the correct amount of touches.
3) Practice Your Passing
This is a simple step that can help improve your game massively as we all know football is a team game. Therefore, you will need to be able to pick out your team players in different areas of the pitch with short and long passing.
Improve your passing using a wall or partner where you can practice 1-touch and 2-touch passing techniques. This helps you to learn to pass accurately in more pressurised situations.
If you are unable to grab a partner or do not have a wall to use, they offer superb rebounders on Amazon. Now you no longer need partners or walls and can consistently practice. Rebounder nets also allow you to practice different types of passing techniques.
4) Shooting Practice
Now depending on where your preferred position is the majority of positions you are still required to learn how to strike the ball. Providing enough power, accuracy and control over the shot. This will most likely be the most exciting part of the training tips as everyone loves to score goals.
This is where the goals and target practice nets come into play. Here you can have some great fun taking penalties, free kicks and normal shots. All whilst trying to get them through the holes. This teaches you how to aim your shot and get a good feel of where you should be striking the ball to get it to where you want it to go.
5) Keeping More Than One Football In The House
This is not so important as the first two but what this step does is allow you to continuously practice day in, day out. If you are like me and constantly playing around losing footballs or if one gets flat. It is important to have a substitute ball available.
