Ezine Article 3

 What to do First

When you are learning how to play soccer, then the very first thing that you should do is ensure that you develop great technical skill.  Getting technical skill can only be done through a lot of practise and repetition of various soccer drills.  Whilst teamwork and tactics play a huge part in the way a team plays, the teams performance will be limited based on the technical ability of the players and the level of skill that players have.

The basic skills that are required for soccer player are:

• Ball Control
• Dribbling
• Passing
• Shooting
• Heading
• Defending
• Goalkeeping

To ensure that you have good soccer skills, a great deal of practice is required to develop good soccer skills a great deal of practice and commitment is required. The key to developing great soccer skills is repetition.  I recommend that players do at least 30 minutes a day of solid practice to develop these skills, including juggling a soccer ball to ensure that their technical ability is of an adequate standard.

Tactics and formations

Teamwork is vital in playing soccer and having a good understanding of how to get into goal scoring positions and conversely how a team can defend against the opposition requires an intimate knowledge of the game and of how to get players to play using different soccer formations.

Soccer Fitness

Being Fit for Soccer does have a major impact on how to play soccer.  I was in a team once that had limited technical ability compared with the majority of teams in our league, but guess what we were runners up in the league purely because we were the fittest team in the league and often won games in the dying minutes, because we were fit enough to "run the opposition off their legs".  So never underestimate the impact that fitness will have on your game.

Rules of Soccer

There are various forms of soccer, ranging from micro soccer (3 a side) to the standard game of 11 a side. FIFA are the worldwide governing body for soccer, and it is FIFA who control the laws of the game that dictate how to play soccer from a rules perspective.  Understanding the laws of the game does have a bearing on what you do, and all players should make sure they understand the laws of the game.

A combination of learning the soccer skills described here, team tactics and team formations, soccer fitness and an understanding of the laws of the game constitute the basics of how to play soccer.

See some more of Nigels articles, or his website for more details information on how to play soccer.

Nigel Reed has been involved in soccer during the 60's, 70's and 80's as a player and has been coaching youth soccer in Australia since 2000. Nigels main soccer website has detailed information on How to play soccer [http://www.coaching-youth-soccer-for-success.com/how-to-play-soccer.html] as well as a number of Free Soccer Drills [http://www.coaching-youth-soccer-for-success.com/free-soccer-drills.html] Good luck with your coaching

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I love how his article does a great job describing what it takes to play soccer because most people think that all it is is picking up a soccer ball and start kicking it around but they overlook the true fundamentals and what it actually takes to play the game effectively. How many times have you heard the saying "soccer isn't a real sport" or "soccer is the easiest sport in the world"? On the contrary, I would agrue that soccer is the hardest sport to play because you use all components of your body when you are playing the game; something that you do not usually find in other popular sports. 

I love the fact that he goes on to mention all of the basic skills that are needed to play soccer like ball control, defense, stamina, dribbling and the list can go on and on but these are just some of the basic and most important skills that are needed when playing the beautiful game. The best soccer players in the world (Messi, Neymar, Etc.) are the result of perfecting the fundamental basics of the game and most people tend to overlook this. You cannot just jump into this game and expect to be the best player in the world or the best player on a local team for that matter. Just like any other sport that you will play in your lifetime, the fundamentals are essential in the learning process and are what is going to take you to that next level. 

Tactics and formation is probably the biggest thing that is overlooked when you talk about any sport really. I come from a small town that did not have the best coaching structure so that meant that I never really knew the importance of structure and learning formations and how to go bout executing a game plan. It wasn't until I played soccer in college when I learned how effective learnining this was actually going to be. Tactics determines how you and your team are going to carry out getting a win over your opposition and many times it works if you execute it properly. Formations also have a big influence in how a game is determined. As mentioned before, when I was younger, I was used to being the best player on the team and inexperienced coaching meant that the game plan for every game was just to get the ball up to me and let me score as many goals as possible and this provided us with no structure or formation that would benefit us in the learning aspect of the game. When you look at professional soccer teams, you can clearly see a formation that is being implimented and how they carry that formation out consistantly throughout the entire game. This is what is so facinating about the game, simple aspects of the game make the biggest impact on you as a player and as a team. One thing to note is that this game is a team effort so you must make sure that everyone understands the tactics and formations that you and your team are trying to accomplish. If one person does not understand it, this can put your whole team at risk since this is a collective effort. 

The rules of soccer are pretty simple once you get to go through them and practice for a while. At first it may seem really confusing because there are a lot of rules but you tend to adapt pretty quickly if you are someone that has never played the game before. But if you know the rules of soccer very well than that just adds to your soccer IQ which is extremely important when it comes to helping you and your team. At first, I was the same way because I wasn't too familiar with the rules of the game but I quickly adapted and it turned into a second nature. 

FItness is one of the most important things to mention when you want  to know how to play soccer. I know it may sound rude but the truth of the matter is, if you want to be successful in this sport you have to have some degree of a fitness level. Cardio is more important than being the biggest/strongest player on the pitch because frankly it does not really matter how strong you are as long as you have good cardio to outrun your opponents. I personally am a smaller person and I find myself having a lot of success on the pitch because I have obtained a good fitness level that allows me to perform at levels that my opposition cannot. 

Lastly, the importance of becoming a better soccer player starts with the fundamentals! If you have any questions or anything that you would like to add feel free to put it down below in the comments section! Lets have a conversation?