Filed under: Dave Clarke, Soccer Coaching, Soccer Skills, Soccer Training | Tags: David Beckham, England, how to bend a ball, how to kick a ball, how to take a free-kick, Real Madrid, Soccer Coaching, where to kick a ball, youth coaching
A couple of weeks ago in Soccer Coach Weekly I showed how David Beckham practiced his free kicks. The effort he put in and the way he achieved perfection for himself. He hit balls from different angles around the goal.
Beckham would not move the angle or distance of the ball from the goal until he hit three perfectly placed balls into the back of the net. He used eight different angles without a goalkeeper and then progressed the exercise to performing the same series of kicks with a goalkeeper.
It showed his commitment to his art.
Coaches of youth soccer teams can get their players to do the same.
You don’t need to practice eight angles, start with two or three then work your way up. It is also a good practice to get your strikers hitting shots on target. But I would initially get the players with the best shots – or ones that can kick the ball hard – to practice until you see a difference in the direction and power of their shots.
In this video David Beckham shows you how to coach free-kicks to young players, where and how they should hit the ball:
