Basics – How to Play Soccer

The objective of soccer is to score goals by advancing the ball down field into the opposing team’s goal. You simply want to score more goals than your opponent. Traditionally goals are scored when a team moves the ball down field through passing and shooting of the ball. However, goals can be made by penalty kicks, direct kicks and corner kicks. That sounds easy enough, but why then are soccer scores traditionally very low compared to other sports like basketball? There are many reasons that factor into this answer, but some of the obvious are field size, players are controlling the ball with their feet and not their hands, and rules of the game.

Lets take a look at the first one: field size.  A regulation soccer field can be a maximum of 130 yards in length and 100 yards in width.   To put it in perspective, a regulation football field is 120 yards in length (with both end zones) and 53 1/2 yards in width.  A professional soccer player during a game will run an average of 9 miles between jogging, running and sprinting.  Being well conditioned and strong on the field is a must, but players cannot just out run and out condition their opponent, they must use the space of the field to move the ball and switch fields to truly take advantage of the size of the field.

The second factor that differs from other sports is that the main body part controlling the ball is the player’s feet.  The best way to get a player to be a good ball handler is to make them use their feet – always.  Often times people will ask, how do I get my child to better control the ball? The answer is “touches” on the ball. A player needs to be touching and controlling the ball as much as possible, so that it becomes second nature to them.  When the player gets to a certain level of comfort they will know how the ball feels and what position their foot is in when they dribble, shoot, kick a long ball, or make a solid pass.

The last factor is rules of the game. There are several soccer rules that prevent certain advantages of play. Knowing these rules and how to adhere to them or use them to your advantage will allow players to keep the ball in play and advancing down the field.

So the team that is strong & well conditioned, moves the ball around the field & controls it, and know the rules will more than likely dominate and win games.

10 Responses to Basics – How to Play Soccer

  1. peter mdaki April 3, 2010 at 3:55 am #

    how to be a professional player

  2. mohamed fanane April 10, 2010 at 9:04 am #

    ncmjqip mjsc

  3. paulmichealin May 17, 2010 at 1:14 am #

    it’s very usefull . send some basic drills

  4. a mustaffa ab rahim August 20, 2011 at 7:30 pm #

    I’m really honour to receive your e book. i thought it’s very useful to us as a coach to have something like that to have such a good guide line to do my coaching lesson with suach confident in helping the young players. Thank you and don’ stop sending valuable tips.

  5. kabeta joseph February 18, 2012 at 12:20 pm #

    i appreciate all the staff of surefire soccer.com for teaching us all basics needed to become a good coach.you have improved my coaching career a lot. basically u have been a blessing to me.having had vision and desire to coach and produce best footballers in uganda and other parts of world .i feel much privileged whenever am reading your materials because are well explained.thank u a lot,keep it up

  6. Thapelo M February 26, 2012 at 12:15 pm #

    i would like to receive that free ebook guide coz they realy help those who wnt to be future coaches.

  7. Desjah December 13, 2012 at 1:41 pm #

    I have been playing soccer for 4 years now and it is very fun I recommend it to anyone who likes to run and have fun!

  8. John@ How to Play Soccer For Beginners February 21, 2013 at 10:51 am #

    Nice article but when you say the most important part is the feet, i would like to add that in addition to feet, another important aspect is the balance of your body. It is as important as control of the ball, because without it, you will never master ball control.

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