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Footwork Soccer – Speed Building Exercises
By Andre Botelho - The "Expert Youth Soccer Coach"
Through footwork soccer, your player and more specifically your goalkeeper, develops total comfort handling the ball at various angles with his feet dexterously. Here are some moves to practice, which can further enhance the alertness and swiftness with which your players tackle the ball on the field.
No matter what you include in your practice plans, don’t forget to incorporate the footwork drills. Its best to begin with some warm up exercises after your players have done some jogging and stretching.
- Join your players and have them follow your movements along with you. Move on your feet at different speeds, surprising your players with different directions. You have to watch your players to see that they are light on their feet with their knees bent and shoulders straight.
- For new players, here’s a fun footwork exercise – get them to stand on their toes. Then have them jump high. Tell them to rest on their heels and jump. This will help them realize the importance of taking off on their toes.
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- Again, ask your players to imitate what you do but surprise them by saying ‘goal!’ at different intervals. When you do this, the goalies must be ready. Go around dribbling the ball with your players keeping track. Then pretend to shoot and see how alert your keepers are. This is to practice keepers moving on their toes when ready.
- For this one you need two cones for each player pair. Let the cones be positioned about six paces from each other. The players stand facing one another across the line formed by the two cones. Designate one player as the leader and the other as his follower.
Let the leader use his agility and footwork, trying to touch the outside of one of the cones before the follower touches the inside of one of them. If they do, give them a point. After 30 seconds to a minute depending on your players’ age level, they can swap positions.
The player with the maximum points wins. Shuffle the players to make new pairs. You must make sure your players maintain shoulder position and keep an eye on their footwork.
The main idea is to have your keepers very light on their feet and comfortable with the quick movements required. Footwork soccer drills can be devised on the spot to develop that agility that is so important with goalkeepers.
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