How to improve your game in Football
Playing soccer involves mental, physical and technical skills. To improve your game, it is not enough just to focus on one of these aspects, since it will not matter if you have the best skills to handle the ball if you do not have a good conditioning and start panting 10 minutes after the game starts. Similarly, if you are a skilled and well-conditioned player, you will not succeed if you do not have the right strategy and approach. If you want to improve your game in a substantial way, you must establish a training program that works on technical skills, soccer strategy, general fitness and mental focus.
Method 1
- Perfect technical skills
Practice juggling to improve your control over the ball. To work in juggling, it is not necessary that you have much space. You may not specifically juggle the ball during games, but if you have the ability to do so, you will gain more control over the ball and better skills to handle it.
- Each time, strive to juggle for a little longer without losing control of the ball. If you manage to do it steadily for 5 minutes, then aim for 10 minutes. You can set a timer on your smartphone or use an analog kitchen timer.
- Also, juggling is useful to improve in catching and stopping the ball.
- Place cones or pennants to perform dribbling exercises. The cones or pennants for the exercises can be obtained in any store of sports products or through an online retailer. You can perform these exercises in a small area of your garden, even if you do not have much space. You must arrange the cones or pennants to form a row and dribble through and around them as you move forward.
- In case you have the possibility of doing it, you could also practice dribbling inside your house, although it may not be advisable to use your soccer boots for it. When dribbling indoors, you will have a lot of obstacles and opportunities to change direction.
- Kick the ball against a wall so you can improve your first touch. You must locate a solid wall of brick or cement so that you do not damage it by kicking the ball repeatedly. To start, stand about 60 cm (2 feet) from the wall and kick the ball as hard as possible against it. Then, position yourself to receive the ball, control it and immediately kick it back against the wall.
- As you improve, you should gradually move away from the wall and try to kick the ball with the same force you used before but from that greater distance.
- Establish a regular schedule for training. Although you train with your team on a regular basis, you also need to train on your own to really improve your game. Therefore, you should look for a moment in which you can spend between 20 and 30 minutes a day practicing your soccer skills.
- You must allocate at least 5 minutes both at the beginning and at the end of the training for heating and cooling. In this way, you will avoid injuring yourself.
- Maybe you should program different exercises in order to practice different skills in a constant way. Consider how you can adapt the exercises you learn in training with your team to perform them on your own.
- In case a friend of your team lives near you, you could plan training sessions in conjunction with him.
- Develop a specialized skill Consider an aspect of football that you like a lot and can perform relatively well or that seems to be natural. Then, focus on that skill in your personal training sessions so that it becomes your characteristic movement.
- By perfecting a skill, you gain greater value as a player and any coach will have a reason to have you on their team. For example, if you are a defender, you could work on your defensive head shots.
- Also, by looking for opportunities to put into practice the specialized skill you have perfected, you can strengthen your self-esteem and develop confidence as a player.
Method 2
Increase your fitness and conditioning
- Use dynamic stretching to improve your range of motion. These stretches (for example, walking lunges and body weight squats) are a good warm-up before a workout or a good conditioning routine that, at the same time, improves the flexibility and range of movement of the joints.
- Before stretching, warm up the muscles by jumping or trotting in your place. Move your arms in wide circles so that your blood flows. Then, before an exercise routine or a game, dedicate 5 minutes to perform dynamic stretching as a way to warm up.
- Develop resistance through interval training. In many cases, soccer players increase their cardiovascular endurance by going either jogging or running, but although it is true that there is a lot of running during a football game, this does not constitute a continuous race but you start and stop, jog, run to All speed, you walk and change direction frequently. Therefore, interval training will prepare you for it.
- By nature, interval training encompasses high and low intensity activity that resembles how one moves during a game.
- When choosing exercises at intervals, you should focus on those that mimic the movements that you are likely to use during a soccer game. When it is not a training season, it may be useful to do a training session at 30 minute intervals between 3 and 4 times a week to keep fit.
- Incorporates compound exercises to perform strength training. The compound exercises are squats, lunges and lizards, among others, and work several joints and muscle groups, automatically balancing the strength of opposing muscle groups. This can be useful to avoid injuries
- For the most part, you should do bodyweight exercises or use free weights to have resistance. When it is not a training season, you should make an effort to perform strength training between 2 and 3 times a week, while, when it is a training season, although you can still do at least one strength training session per week, you must avoid exceeding yourself.
- You must move your entire body to strengthen all muscle groups, but focusing mainly on the lower part of your body and the muscles of the torso.
- Develop coordination in the feet and speed jumping rope. You can alternate between jumping with two feet and on one foot and performing cross jumps, gradually increasing the speed at which you jump. It is also possible to imitate the movement even if you do not have a jump rope
- If you use a rope to jump with weight, you can develop strength and balance in the upper body and torso muscles.
- You can start jumping rope 3 to 4 times a week for 15 minutes and increase the duration gradually. Also, if you are going to perform interval training, you could incorporate the skipping rope exercise as an interval.
- Perform plyometric exercises to develop speed and agility. Exercises of this type employ explosive movements, such as jumping, to develop fast-twitch muscle fibres. In this way, you acquire more power and speed. Among the basic plyometric exercises are jump squats and burpees.
- Apart from plyometric exercises, you can improve your speed by also practicing speed races. Professional footballers can run 27 m (30 yards) in the space of approximately 4 seconds.
- When it is not a training season, you should perform plyometric and speed exercises at least once a week for 20 to 30 minutes. When it's a training season, you can reduce this session.
Method 3
Develop tactics and strategy
- Watch professional and national matches. You must carefully study the movements of elite players and analyse how they maintain possession of the ball and position players to score. Consider the opportunities where you can employ similar strategies in your own game.
- Look at teams that have a wide variety of game styles instead of just focusing on one or two teams that you personally like. Also, it might be advisable to conduct a study of the same team against many different teams to determine how to adapt their strategy to maximize the weaknesses of their opponents.
- The games that would be good to look at in terms of strategy are those in which a team that carries the losers has won a team of a high level.
- Use the width of the field when playing the offensive. In the moments in which your team has possession of the ball, they must disperse and use the size of the field to disintegrate the defence of the other team and generate opportunities to score a goal. Keep the ball moving through races and short and long passes.
- By keeping the ball in motion, the defence will not have the opportunity to surround you and make it difficult to make passes.
- Pass the ball to the players who are on the outside so that the defence is diluted and open spaces so that one of your teammates can be positioned in an advantageous way.
- Reinforce to defend as a unit. At times when the other team has possession of the ball, your overall strategy should be the opposite of your strategy when you have possession. In this case, they must move more towards the centre of the field and move together as if they were an impenetrable mass.
- Keep in mind that the opposing team will try to dilute them, but they must maintain their position, especially when the other team passes the ball to a player who is on the outside. For example, if a pass is made to the right lane, all of your equipment should move to the right as a unit.
- Put your team's strategy into practice in a constant way. The coach will inform both you and your teammates about the general strategy of the team. If at any time you are in doubt, you must resort to this default strategy regardless of the relative abilities of the opposing team.
- Your team's strategy must maximize its strengths and minimize its weaknesses. In case you perceive some way in which this strategy could be improved, you should talk to your coach and your colleagues.
- Work together with your coach to understand the role you play in the team's overall strategy, especially if you move to another position.
- Study the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents. You must adapt your general strategy before each game so that you can limit the strengths of your opponents and exploit their weaknesses. Study carefully your game, looking at the individual players and also how they play together.
- If you can understand how your opponents usually act in situations of different types, you can anticipate how they will react and, in this way, be proactive in the field of play.
- Communicate with your teammates. When you are on the playing field, you should talk to them and listen to them when they speak to you. Inform them if there is a player who is heading towards them to pressure them or if you are free. In case the opportunity presents itself, ask for the ball to enter the game.
- Use not only your voice but also the body language to communicate. Turn your head while you play to know where the ball is and you can anticipate what can happen in any part of the field.
- Also, you can communicate through the strength of your passes. For example, with a smoother pass, you usually indicate that the receiver has more time, while, with a more marked pass, you could indicate that the receiver is under pressure.
Method 4
Develop the right mind-set
- Play for your team. Do not forget that soccer is a team sport. It will not go well for you if you play just for you. All the movements you make on the field of play must be designed so that your team positions itself better for the attack, not for you to look good.
- In case you have a personal problem with another member of your team, you should avoid taking it with you to the field. When the game starts, you must put aside all personal hostility and focus on the team as a whole.
- Stay focused through an encouraging internal dialogue. If you constantly repeat an encouraging mantra in your mind, this can improve your confidence and help you stay present. In case you feel the need to criticize you, you should let it go and return to give you encouragement.
- For example, you can repeat the following to yourself: "Nothing happens, you are doing very well, you just have to give a simple kick, you have done it before, good clean kick".
- Visualize your best game. You can help yourself through visualization and meditation to develop your confidence and improve your self-image. Every day, it takes 5 to 10 minutes to sit quietly and visualize yourself playing as best you can or scoring a goal to win the game.
- Think about how the movements feel and how your body feels. Position yourself in the moment by reproducing the visualization in your mind.
- Improve your control through breathing and relaxation techniques. You can help keep calm under pressure by performing deep breathing exercises. Because football can become an intensely personal sport, your opponents will often try to detonate your emotions to distract you.
- Practice positive and useful reactions to the events of a match that would normally make you react with anger or annoyance, just keep calm and keep going.
- Learn from your mistakes and let them go. It will not be possible for you to improve your game in football (or in any other sport) if you do not make mistakes in the process. The moment the inevitable happens, you must take a deep breath and return to the present.
- When the match or training is over, you will have time to analyse your mistakes and learn from them, but, at the moment, you should not think about them. If you obsess with your mistakes, your mind will stop being in the game and this will affect your performance.
Tips
- When playing soccer, you should stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water, since, if you become dehydrated, you may become fatigued and injured.
- To train, you must use the appropriate equipment, which includes football boots, shin guards and socks. In this way, you will get used to using the right equipment and also avoid injuring yourself.
Warnings
- If you are injured, regardless of whether it is a training or a game, you should take a few days off to rest and allow your body to recover before trying to train again.
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