The events that have taken place over the past couple of weeks relating to COVID-19 have made it so that more and more people are spending the most, if not all, of their days indoors. As you can imagine, the world of sports has been immensely impacted. Numerous sports, including soccer, have either partially or completely shut down for the season for the sake of safety.
Overall, it’s more than easy to say that a lot has quieted down for the world of soccer in the outdoors. That’s why I thought I might take this opportunity to provide you with a method of keeping your skills up in the case you find yourself stuck indoors!
Juggling:
Figure 1: Juggling with a soccer ball
This is probably the oldest training exercise in the book, but it works incredibly well. Juggling the ball is essentially using the feet, knees, chest, head, and pretty much anything except your arms, to keep the ball in the air and off the ground. It doesn’t require much space at all as long as you keep the ball low to the ground.
It might be a bit tough to get a hang of at first, but the more you do it, the better you get. It helps you practice ball control really well and teaches you how different parts of your foot help you move the ball in different ways. Once you get the hang of, try some different trick or mix-ups with foot movement to keep it entertaining and challenging.
Wall Passes:
Figure 2: Wall Passing with Juggling
This little practicing method is really versatile. All you need is a hard wall, a ball, some time to kill, and you can do a lot with wall passes. It’s as easy as it sounds, all you do is pass the ball towards the wall, it bounces back towards you, and you use one touch to pass it back again. The one-touch part is important because it teaches you to control about where to hit the ball to get it going in the direction you want and also how hard to hit the ball so it doesn’t bounce back out of your reach
You can stand as far away from the wall as you want, but it gets more challenging the closer you get. The shorter distance forces you to have a faster reaction time and maintain more control. You can also incorporate juggling into his exercise by simply kicking the ball into the air towards the wall instead of along the ground. Keep it in the air as it goes back and forth between you and the wall, you got a whole new way to practice now!