Filed under: Dave Clarke, Soccer Skills | Tags: dribble, England 5 croatia 1, Women's euro 2009, World Cup 2010
I have watched some great matches over the last couple of weeks, including England beating Croatia 5-1 in the World Cup 2010 and the Women’s Euro 2009 final England 2 Germany 6. What I noticed was the number of players who dribble using one foot and use their other foot to control the ball back into the path of their main foot. They don’t use their secondary foot for crossing, long passing or shooting.
Not many players are great with both feet, but if you can get your players to use their secondary foot to help them control the ball, they will be able to dribble better and quicker than if they just use one foot. Iin effect what they have to do is to move it back into the path of the foot they are going to shoot with or pass with.
You find in youth soccer that players don’t want to use their secondary foot at all and will go into the most tortuous shapes to get the ball with their main foot. So when you put into practice two footed exercises what you want to see from your players is accuracy with their secondary foot not power.
I prefer simple two footed exercises like dribbling around a cone passing the ball between each foot with every step – left-right-left-right. This gets both feet working on accuracy and gives players an insight into how professional players keep control of the ball when running at speed.
Watch this clip which show the simple two footed dribbling exercise in action.
