8 Drills to Improve Your Football Skills
There’s only one way to get better at football: hard work. And football drills are an essential part of that.
Fitting drills into your football training boosts your muscle memory, spatial awareness and ball control. Learning new skills also gives you more options to use on pitch.
We’ve put together a list of eight football drills every player should use in their training.
8 football technique training drills
These eight football training techniques are easy to do alone or with your teammates. Build them into your warm-ups or solo sessions and you’ll soon start to see improvements in your overall game play.
We’ve divided these football drills into three key areas that will boost major areas of your game.
Football dribbling exercises
Ball control is vital for any player. These dribbling football drills help you connect with the ball and move it better.
Cone square
A cone square is one of the best football drills for beginners. It improves your ball control, spatial awareness and ability to change direction.
Grab five cones - place four of them in a square, about 5 m apart. Place the fifth cone at the centre of this square.
Start at an outside cone, and dribble the ball to the central cone, feint, then dribble the ball round the cone and back to the next outside square, going around clockwise until you’ve completed the square. Then, reverse the direction.
To make it harder, go faster.
Ronaldinho drills
This is one of the best football dribbling exercises. Named after the legendary Brazilian player, it trains you to control the ball in tight spaces using tons of tiny touches. It’ll also make defenders hate playing against you.
Get around 20 cones and scatter them randomly in a small area (say, 5 m x 3 m), with about 30 cm space around each cone.
You approach the cones with the ball, then start skipping through them, moving side to side, forward and backward, making sure the ball never touches a cone. Spend about 30 seconds dribbling through the cones. Once you’re out the other side of the patch of cones, strike the ball at goal.
Dribbling without looking at the ball
On paper, this is a fairly simple football drill. But in practice, it’s super hard. The aim is to improve your ball control, spatial awareness and game intelligence.
To do this drill, you simply dribble the ball around the pitch while constantly scanning the horizon - without ever looking at the ball. Move around the pitch at random, changing directions and pace for up to three minutes.
By doing this drill, you’ll be better prepared to move the ball without looking at it. In games, this means you can more comfortably look up while moving, spot your teammates’ runs and pick out the perfect pass.
Finishing drills in football
There are tons of football finishing drills. Here are three that you can practice alone or with your teammates.
Hit the target
This one’s great for improving your accuracy when shooting.
First, you need to make a target. If you have a wall you can play against, use chalk to mark targets at different heights. If you practice on a pitch, hang a few jerseys or bibs off the crossbar.
The goal is simply to do target practice from various distances and angles, using both your strong and weak feet. Keep shooting until you’ve struck all the targets, then move further away and repeat.
Cross and shoot
Every coach uses this football finishing drill. It trains you to make split second decisions about the best way to score from a cross.
You’ll need a teammate who can kick a ball towards the centre of the penalty area. You stand on the outside of the penalty area, run in, and finish in one touch (with your legs or head). Repeat three times, then switch places with the crosser.
Control and shoot
This is a great football drill you can do alone. It trains you to control a ball, then take a shot in a tight space.
Place four cones on the ground on the outside of the penalty area. Each cone should be about two metres apart, to make a square. Stand in the middle of the square, facing away from goal.
Now, throw (or kick) the ball high up in the air directly above you. As it comes down, control it with one touch, then turn and shoot. Neither your body nor the ball should leave the square before you take your shot.
Passing drills for football
You need to do football passing drills in every single training session. Here are a couple to try.
Moving long ball two touch passing
This football drill sharpens your accuracy, ball control and helps you get a feel for weighting a longer pass.
Get a partner and stand about 30 m apart. You simply run along the pitch parallel to one other, passing the ball back and forth. The rule is that you can only have two touches - one for control, the other to return the pass.
Dribble and pass
This is a great warm up and will work your ball control, changes in direction and spatial awareness. You need at least three players to do this drill.
Grab five cones. Put four of the cones into a reasonably large square (8 m x 8 m). One player stands on the side of this square. Then, put the fifth cone about 15 m away from the square - the other two players form a queue behind this cone.
Player one waits at the side of the square, and player two passes the ball to them. Once they receive the ball, player one dribbles to the far side of the square, turns, and passes the ball back to the fifth cone, before running round to the back of the queue. In the meantime, player two has run to the side of the square, and waits for player three to pass them the ball.
Keep repeating this drill for five minutes, until everyone is warmed up.
Making you a better player
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