What if I told you that 50% of soccer coaching drills should focus on enhancing the trapping skills of your players? You won’t take it seriously. 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 skill which enables a player to catch the ball and keep it close to himself. These are soccer exercises that permit the use of chest, thighs and feet while doing so.
You must acquaint your players with this skill of trapping the ball. If they can’t trap the ball, they are sure to lose their grip over the match because this is very basic. 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. Especially with younger players in kids soccer drills, it is important to make them use the inside of their foot. The biggest reason for this is that the inside area of the foot is broad and is most helpful in tackling the ball.
Soccer Drills
If the players are advanced and mature, teach them to use the instep or top of the foot as well as the whole foot in trapping the ball during the soccer coaching drills. When the ball is hopping too much, tell them to employ the most favorable trick of using their shin or ankle.
Thigh Movement: Using your thigh to control rapid and bouncy ball is an excellent approach. Train the players to stop the ball with one thigh, get stable using the other, after getting in front of the ball. While doing this, remember that the knee should some down when it comes in contact with the ball so that the ball remains within the player’s range.
Master the skill of capturing the ball using the knee and then dropping the knee so the ball plunges down and stays within range by intensively working on this exercise.
Use the Chest: Just like the thigh, chest too has a vital role to play in trapping the ball flying high in the air. Teach your players to tackle the ball using their chest by getting in front of the ball and take their chest out. This will have the effect of breaking the ball’s speed and tumbling it down immediately.
But make sure that in soccer training drills, this technique should not be rigorously taught to the young players. It is very typical of them to use their hands while trying to stop the ball with the chest. This practice could lead to a problem by kids getting comfortable using their hands to deal with the ball.
It’s time now to execute these soccer coaching drills. Make the players practice these more and more. You could get an easy access to vast amount of tips by subscribing to our youth soccer coaching community.
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.
