Filed under: Dave Clarke, Soccer Coaching, Soccer Skills | Tags: overhead kicks, rainbow kick, Ronaldo, Soccer Skills
Some skills are done just to make you look like you are the best soccer player in your team – or like a Brazilian player!
My favourite one that I used to do all the time as a young player was the rainbow kick. It is usually used in street soccer, but you can use it in matches although it doesn’t have a high success rate so you have to practise it a lot before you can make it work.
You can use it to catch a defender out – the player steps over the ball and flicks it up and over their head in an arc. he trick is usually performed while running forward with the ball, and is done by rolling the ball up the back of one leg with the other foot, before flicking the standing foot upwards to propel the ball forward and over the head.
It was famously used by Ossie Ardiles in the film The Great Escape.
What you trying to do is flick the ball over your head and that of the defender opening up a route to goal. Watch this and see how you can coach your players to use it…
Filed under: Dave Clarke, Soccer Coaching, Soccer News, Soccer Skills, Soccer Team Management, Soccer Training | Tags: Leeds Utd U18, Liverpool U18, penalty area tactics, shooting, The Damned Utd, youth coaching
I’ve just come in from watching a great game. Our U16s have played out of their skins and beaten the team at the top of the table. But both teams could have won the game.
We won because when we got near the penalty area we shot at goal. Our opponents tried to play it too near to the goal and ended up losing the ball every time.
I like to see a good bit of control then a shot, it happens to be the best way to put the opposition goalkeeper under a bit of pressure. Sometimes we try to play too many passes to get near the goal, when a good shot is what is needed to win a game.
Watch this clip of Leeds Utd U18s beating Liverpool u18s 3-1. The Leeds players are controlling the ball around the penalty area and making their possession count. Take a look at this…
