What if I told you that 50% of soccer coaching drills should focus on enhancing the trapping skills of your players? You’ll easily reject it as a silly assumption. But No! Research shows that trapping along with passing and dribbling skills alone decide whether your team is capable of winning matches or not.
Trapping is the ability of the players to intercept the ball and then keep it near their body. In such soccer exercises, they can use their feet, chest, and thighs to do so.
You must acquaint your players with this skill of trapping the ball. If not, they will never really be in control of the game because everything else comes after trapping the ball. There are a few practices that will prove helpful in improving the trapping skills of players.
Involve the Feet: Primarily, the coach must teach the players to use their feet in tackling the ball. In kids soccer drills, the kids must be particularly trained on using the inside of their foot. This is because the inside area of the foot id wide and very useful in engaging with the ball.
During soccer coaching drills, the high ranking and senior players should be educated on the use of foot, its crown, and instep of the foot plus the whole foot. Guide the players to use their shin or ankle as the best bet to hold the ball if the ball is leaping too much.
Thigh Movement: To control high-speed and bouncy ball, thigh can be used very efficiently. Players should be taught to face of the ball, use one thigh to catch the ball and the other to stand on the ground. It is important to learn that as soon as the ball meets the thigh, the knee should be dropped so that the ball drops right there and does not move away from the player.
This exercise of dropping the knee needs to be done repetitively so that the players master the art of first stopping the ball using the knee and then drop it so that the ball trickles down the feet.
Use the Chest: Just like the thigh, chest too has a vital role to play in trapping the ball flying high in the air. Players should be positioned in front of the ball to face it but using the energy through their chest to stop it. This will have the effect of breaking the ball’s speed and tumbling it down immediately.
But keep in mind that in soccer training drills, young players are given only a few modest lessons on this technique. It is very typical of them to use their hands while trying to stop the ball with the chest. This can become a serious issue if they tend to become habitual of tackling the ball with hands.
Now its time to start putting these soccer coaching drills into action. Encourage the players to practice these to a great extent. Subscribe to our youth soccer coaching community and get a good deal of such guidelines and tricks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andre Botelho is known online as “The Expert Youth Soccer Coach” and his free ebooks and reports have been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Learn how to skyrocket your players’ skills and make training fun in record time. Download your free ebook at: http://www.soccerdrillstips.com – Youth Soccer Training Drills.
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