If you have kids who play soccer, you have probably noticed that those corner kicks dont always turn out the way your son or daughter intended. This brief article is directed at kids age 11 or older. Having grown up part of my life in Brazil, I was fortunate enough to play soccer in my neighborhood and in middle school championships. Those were fun days. Ive learned a few things that most Brazilian soccer players learn by watching, practicing and playing the game. Let me share with you a technique that will help your child improve his corner kicking skills and hopefully help score more goals for his or her team. The first thing that needs to be done is to determine your childs kicking distance. You can easily do this by placing your child at the corner kick mark and having him do his best kick toward the goal. If the soccer ball is not quite reaching into the goalie box, then you need to have your child practice kicks until his kicking distance improves. Positive encouragement, focused repetition, number of steps back prior to hitting the ball, where to hit the ball and effort should strengthen leg muscles, ball and leg coordination and eventually improve ball travel distance. The most important thing about corner kicks is where the ball needs to end up. Ive observed that many kids simply kick the ball and hope for the best. Thats a learned bad habit. Once your child has reached the right kicking range, he needs to find out how to aim the ball to generate the result intended: a great pass to a teammate who kicks or heads the ball past the goalie or a direct goal from his own corner kick. Heres a training tactic thats very simple to use. Stand about 2-3 parallel to the right goal post and ask your child to kick from the corner while aiming his kick precisely where you stand. At first the ball might go too much to the right, too much to the left and often behind the goalie posts. The idea behind this exercise is to develop your childs sense of kick accuracy. Dont worry. Practice makes perfect. After a dozen or so kicks, your child will have an idea of where he or she needs to aim the kick to get the desired results. You may need to vary your distance from the right post but try not to go farther than 4-5 feet from it. Once you feel that your childs kicks are more on-target, you simply advise your player to use one of his teammates as a target or mark whenever hes doing a corner kick. This will help the ball end up where its supposed to go. Remember, for optimum corner kicks, first determine your childs kicking distance, then, if needed, help your child develop longer shots. Aim for the farthest goal post and use a physical target as a point of reference, so you child you will learn how to deliver more powerful and more targeted corner kicks. Please remember that safety comes first. Many injuries can be prevented if players wear proper safety gear and follow the rules of the game. Always warm up and stretch before any games. |
