The Soccer Skill Our Kids Need to Learn

According to Jürgen Klinsmann, American soccer players need to improve their "first touch". That covers a lot of the game. I believe it's true for my kids. While they love our soccer practices and games, they really don't play much soccer outside of the season. Without that day-to-day playing with the ball, they're just not going to develop that instinctive first touch that some players have. There are a hundred reasons/excuses why they don't play much soccer in the summer, but the fact remains they don't. I'm have no doubt this is true for most of the players on our two teams. So to make up for it, I'm thinking at practice we'll play some one-touch, quick-pass games and some keep away games in tight spaces. However, for now its still too hot (reason/excuse) to practice, so we'll just keep sipping our lemonade and talking about what we'll do later this year.

-Bill