Here are the key points:
- She should start with a little pass to herself; just a light touch on the ball to get it out in front of her. (She should use a similar touch when receiving a pass; keep the ball and her feet moving.)
- She should pick her target.
- She should draw an imaginary line from the target through the center of the ball.
- She then looks at the little spot on the back of the ball where she will kick it.
- Her left foot should plant beside the ball (not behind it). If the ball is rolling away from her, she'll need to aim to put her left foot a little in front of the ball.
- Her left toe should point where she wants the ball to go.
- She should drive her right foot through the center of the ball using the inside part of her foot with her ankle locked and her toe up (to make the ball roll on the ground).
- Her follow-through should go toward their target. She should maintain good balance through entire the kick.
A little to much for children of their ability to take in, try keep it simple. The English FA say children below 11 years old shouldn't be taught any technique till they can fully understand what your talking about. Most children move away from football because they cant master technique at that age and therefore think they aren't good enough:)
ReplyDeleteVery useful tips Bill..thanks..all girls must be very happy!!!:)
ReplyDeleten yes Paul i agree with you...coaching soccer to kids is very difficult because they don't like to hear long lectures about soccer skills and techniques. The only solution is to develop some fun soccer drills to practice with them and just try to make them good in kicking ball because with time, they gradually learn the soccer other skills and techniques.
Thank you for your comment. It's a very good point. My post was really meant to share with the parents that the girls need some time on the ball. In other words, it's not as simple as many of them may think.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind, I can share with you a little on how things went with improving the way our 8-9 year old girls kicked the ball.
The kicking skills I really wanted to improve the most were:
1) Some of the girls had a tendency to stop the ball, backup from the ball, and then kick it. I really wanted them to touch the ball out in front of them instead of stopping it and backing up. With just a handful of repetitions, they really improved here.
2) Most of the girls had a tendency to look at the target as they kicked rather than looking at the ball. This resulted in some really poor kicks. I wanted to encourage them to kick the ball more accurately by picking a target and a place on the ball that would put it there. Then if they looked at that place on the ball, they could be confident it would go toward their target. I know this technique helped some, it wasn't a complete success.
3) Most of the girls also tend to put their plant foot well behind the ball which forces them to toe kick it, or if they're trying to use the inside of their foot, to miss it badly. Our league's coaching director said we should emphasize proper kicking form at even very early ages. Now I'm somewhat undecided on this point. I think a lot of the kids just don't have the physical coordination to kick with the inside of their foot at young ages and telling them the "toe kick is bad" can be discouraging. I've wondered if the "laces kick" might be a good interim step even though I personally find it harder than the "inside of the foot" kick; it can be done with less hip swing yet it still encourages them to get their plant foot beside the ball as compared to toe kicking.
So I had good success with # 1. Moderate success with # 2, though I emphasized it somewhat less than # 1. # 3 was emphasized much less, but is certainly helpful to our best kicker.
What do you think? Are # 1 and # 2 age appropriate? Is # 3 a good idea? Do you think toe kicking is ok at the young ages?
(BTW, I am a big believer in letting the girls learn the game through games. My #1 goal is to let them have fun and be creative. We don't spend much time on drills at all. I just try to expose them to the fundemental ideas when it seems like they may have been motivated to listen by having some difficulities during a game.)