If you love to play football, but you’re not very good at it, probably all you need are a few tips to improve. Practicing the right way will make you a better player in just a few weeks, as long as you’re consistent and disciplined. Learn to be good at football.

How good can you become? Well, it’s true that if you don’t have a natural talent you may not become the best of your friends, but you will have a level of play good enough for everyone to consider you a reliable player on the pitch, and want to have you on their team. So don’t wait any longer; start training today with these special recommendations Sports Domain Lab prepared for you.

Steps to be good in football

1. Run three or four days a week. A key factor to being good at football is having a physical condition that allows you to run all over the field for the entire game. If your body is not prepared for this, no matter how much you practice the techniques of hitting and ball control: your performance on the field will not be good.

  • Complement cardiovascular exercise with a little muscular exercise. While running increases the capacity of your lungs, doing additional exercises such as squats, irons and chest push-ups will help strengthen the muscles in your legs and back, which are very important for hitting the ball. In addition, you will be exercising your arms a little, which are useful for throw-ins.
  • If you’re not used to running, start for just 20 minutes, and don’t overdo the muscle exercises either. Getting in shape is important, but it’s something you get little by little, and you shouldn’t get obsessed with the idea. Remember to take one day off for each day of exercise.

2. Spend some time each day jogging with the ball as close to your feet as possible.  If you need to start at a really slow speed, do it. The goal here is not really to exercise while jogging, but to concentrate on watching the ball roll in front of you by pushing it with your feet, and to learn to push it always with just enough force so that it doesn’t go far and you can keep it in your power as you move around the court.

3. Also on a daily basis, you should practice throwing passes against the wall, always responding with a single touch. Stand in front of any wall, kick the ball with medium force and react quickly to kick it again when it returns to your feet.

  • Count the passes you can make between the wall and yourself without losing control of the ball. The goal is that after a few weeks of practice you can safely complete 50 successful passes, responding in one touch to the rebound coming from the wall.
  • Pay special attention to the direction you give the ball by hitting it with different parts of your foot. With time you’ll begin to notice why it’s important to hit the inside of the ball to give it the exact direction you want: so your passes will always go to the center of the wall in front of the wall you’re practicing, and when they bounce they’ll come right back to you so you can kick a good pass again in one move.
  • When you have practiced enough with your most skillful leg, start to slightly tilt the direction of some passes, so that they bounce diagonally from the wall and you must answer them with your other leg. Be patient and remember that it can take many weeks or even months before you know how to kick the ball well with your less skilful leg. But the time will come when you will be able to complete 100 uninterrupted passes by kicking one-touch to the wall, interspersing both legs as part of the exercise.

4. The next thing you need to practice is shooting at goal. If you don’t have a real court where you can practice, a stretch of wall can work for this as well. Just make sure you somehow mark the posts so you can train your aim in a well-marked frame.

  • Remember again that hitting the inside of the foot is essential to give a good direction to your shot. What exactly is the part of the shoe with which you want to kick the ball? If it’s your right foot, imagine that the ideal point of contact for hitting the ball is the left row of holes for laces or shoelaces. If it is your left foot, imagine that the ideal point is the right line of holes for the shoelaces.
  • You must bend the foot slightly outwards and downwards to get the ball kicked with the ideal point of contact on the inside of your sports shoe. The movement of your leg from the back to the front can also have different angles, so be sure to bend it back so that the line that forms between your foot and the ball you are about to hit points to the exact point where you expect to send the ball after hitting it.
  • Just as the angle you bend your leg back to gain momentum will affect the direction of your shot, the tilt of your hip can cause you to kick at mid-height, ground level, or quite high. If you want to send a shot flush with the ground, your hip should be tilted slightly forward so that your leg does not lift when the ball hits. If you want to send a high shot, you should tilt your hip slightly back so that your leg lifts a little more when you hit the ball. Be sure to use a very slight tilt, as it is very easy to exaggerate and send the ball too high.

5. Now that you have the basic skills to have a good game on the court, the next thing you need to develop is your sense of direction on the field and confront your opponents.

  • A good player is characterized by having a vision of the entire field of play. You must know exactly where your team-mates will be next to receive a pass, and be able to anticipate a long drive from the other side if you are a defender, or embark on a race with ball control to penetrate the opponent’s lines and leave a team-mate unmarked if you are an attacker.
  • The best way to begin to have a good view of the field is to observe many professional football matches and analyse them. Take advantage of the fact that today on the internet or on television you can watch matches from the best leagues in the world. Watch how the players are distributed all over the pitch, how they solve complicated situations, how they cheat to outwit the rival brand, without losing control of the ball while they are moving forward.
  • Another important option to familiarise yourself with the movement and planning of the game during a football match is to play a video game like EA Sports’ FIFA. By becoming familiar with the game plan of different teams, each with its own way of defending and attacking, you will begin to reason in your head what are the best ways to move the ball around the field to overcome the obstacles that the opposing team places in front of it.

6. Play with other friends whenever you can. To deepen your technique with more moves than we describe here as a summary, you only need to study the variations made with them by the most skillful players.

7. As you practice, watch, and learn football, make sure you’re having fun. You’ll never be completely good if you don’t enjoy every second you spend on the field, even if you’re not very good yet. Keep in mind that if you are interested in this sport for many years, you need to learn little by little so that you are always passionate about the game and do not get tired of enjoying it. If you only think about goals instead of enjoying while you practice, you won’t get to the end of the process. Be patient with yourself, though, while still making demands on your training.