If you have trouble hitting shots powerfully, how do you manage big defensive clearances?

Pass the ball to the strikers and let them do the shooting... and concentrate on your purely defensive skills.

I used have the same sort of problem with movement when I was around 14-15. I am now 197cm and 76kg. My coach got when I was in under 14s made me tap my toes for all training, before, during and after a game. Its tiring but it gets the blood flowing through your legs and keeps you on your toes during a game.
I am still not the most maneuverable player but rarely get caught flat footed.

Here's a rugby exercise. We used it for agility in moving to tackle, which is semi-relevant.

- Find four old tyres (or similar objects). Make a square (tyres in each corner, sides of said tyre-square about 2m long. Label corners North, South, East and West.

- Get a mate who is good at yelling.

- Stand in the middle. Get your friend to yell a direction (N/S/E/W). As soon as he does it, sprint, jump over the tyre, hit the deck, then get up, jump over the tyre and run back into the middle. As soon as you jump over the tyre back into the middle, the friend shouts another direction at random. Continue for fifteen minutes or so.

Might sound complicated, but it is very good at forcing you to change direction at speed. Also good for fitness and improves short-distance speed and agility.

Most of this has been covered nicely but to recap what id be working on is:
Ladder work going through forwards then sideways then inside outside of the ladder.

mark out a area no longer than 20m take a 5m run up and skip as far as you can with each stride like a tripple jumper would do. this will help condidtion your calf muscles.

Short sprints of around 10-15m where you start in a push up position.

put 5 cones in a zig zag formation and sprint and touch each cone.

put 3-4 corner flags 5m apart and sprit to each one and run around each flag whilst always facing forward.
These drills are all about getting your feet to move faster and intern hopefully getting you reacting quicker.
Have fun and good luck.

P.S you could help me by telling me how to get one of those fan logos under my profile? im stumped!haha

Edited by Loyalist: 21/1/2011 02:33:04 PM

Youre a defender. Why do you need a strong shot? Sure its nice but its not the first thing you need to work on.

Youre not very big. You need to slap on some mass.

Agility drills and plyometrics will help you move and accelerate better. Plyometrics are way more effective when youve got a good strength base though. They say achieve a twice bodyweight squat and plyo will have a profound effect.
If youre reluctant to get in the gym to put on weight just watch your diet. You dont want to be undereating or youll just stay skinny. Its kinda hard to put on weight without some sort of lifting program though.

Defending is all about positioning and angles. Finding the right angle between the player, the sideline and the goals, basically. Standing sideways facing the closest sideline is a must. You shouldnt ever really be facing square looking up the field.

cheers for the tips guys. going to work on them all. keep them coming if you got anything.

Some good comments on here so I suggest you look at their ideas and try to work with them. 1.85 is almost 6ft in the old scale and 70kg's suggests your not that solid. However your legs may be either lanky or solid in proportion to the top half of your body. I'm guessing here due to lack of bio details. Your top half of your body works in conjuction with your bottom half. IE Arms move in sync with your legs, If the top half is out of balance with the bottom half this can cause a heavier load for either half. Either way there is help.

Legs feel weighty or lacty,
Some things you can try when running is when starting off try to get going in smaller steps then open the stride as you sprint along. Practicing shuttle runs is helpful here. IE: Shuttle runs are placing about 8 cones 2 meteres apart in a line and sprint to the first, come back then sprint to second, come back, sprint to third come back etc.
In a nutshell practice anything that uses smaller faster steps. Small sprinting bursts on the spot etc. Riding a bicycle in one of the easier fastest gears can also help with insta speed bursts. Some good ideas above so consider those as well.

Power on the ball,
Power on the ball is more related to your technique "How you kick the ball". Rather than trying to belt the leather off it all the time. It is important to make good contact in the centre of the ball with the hardest part of your foot (Draw an imaginary line between big toe back to top of your ankle along the bootlace line, about halfway is the optimum hit spot of your foot). Try shooting from about the 18 yard box with a 2 metre run up making sure you hit the ball sweetly in the middle with the area between your toes and top of your ankle (central bootlace area) which is the hardest part of foot. When you feel you are getting better power and control take a further metre run up when shooting, Then when you feel comfortable with accuracy and power take another step further back. The key is finding your optimum run up, power and control in balance. Too much run up or too much power will cost you accuracy. Not enough and you wont find your optimum balance of power, control and accuracy.

You know when your doing it right when the ball fly's off the boot without a huge effort.

Hope this helps and good luck.



Edited by Aussiesrus: 13/1/2011 04:46:10 AM

Zimbos, another tip is to try and get on the balls of your feet and keep moving.

When facing players running at you with the ball, get side on in a type of boxing/karate stance without getting your arms up in front of your head. I've found this often enables me to get a foot in for a tackle rather than the full blooded block or sliding tackle. Don't face the player front on.

Also, try and run away from players carrying the ball as they come towards you and waiting for a supporting defender, by running sideways, looking at the ball- not looking at the player carrying the ball.

Once I was conducting an excellent drill with some rep team players. A more experienced coach suggested that the players get on the balls of their feet, moving from fort to foot. It worked so much better.

Skipping is also good for improving footwork.

Shooting I can help with more than agility.

Make sure your head is over the ball when you shoot.

Initially practise shooting by just tapping a ball a little in front of you with the instep, then strike it at about half pace at a target goal about 10 metres in front of you. It is good if you have a mate as a goalkeeper, or, practise against a wall.

Then tap it to the side diagonally with the outside of the foot, then strike the ball at half pace at two targets, just inside a 7 metre goal about 20 centimetres from each side of the goal posts. All the time make sure you are shooting with your instep.

For power it would be good if your mate ( keeper) can roll the ball slowly to you, straight at you, which increases the power as you strike it first time.

For variation you can try the outside of the foot and your non-preferred foot.

You can also use the side of the foot for placement.

All the time work on timing, not trying to hit the ball too hard and getting your head over the ball. As you start to increase the power again, you can move further out from the goal. When you improve, have your mate play balls from left and right, one twos, where you run and take a shot first time if you can.

I was assisting at a state under 17 training session where I was the surrogate keeper to work with three strkers. I am a useless keeper too, but there was nobody else. There was a specialist forward coach brought in to work with the strikers.

One striker had tremendous power from almost a stationary position. That player's weakness was striking the moving ball effectively.

The other two strikers could strike the moving ball quite well, but needed a run up to generate power.

Apart from nearly dying from trying to save shots like cannons, I learnt a bit about striking the ball!

Believe it or not I watched the Socceroos perform shooting practice before Verbeek's first game as Socceroo coach at Etihad a few years ago. They were absolutely hopeless!! I thought they wouldn't score against Qatar, but they did!

Hope this helps.

Edited by Decentric: 13/1/2011 12:12:01 AM

I've discussed increasing a player's pace and agility with a few sports science people and experienced coaches. I've done a lot of tactical stuff and technical development in coaching courses, but not this type of thing. It seems the best a player can hope for is 15% improvement in this facet of the game, by working on it all the time.

One exercise is doing a lot of short sharp work, sprints, in moving 5 metres forwards and backwards, interspersed with 5 metres sideways to the left and sideways to the right sprinting. Not very interesting unless one is an elite youth, semi-professional or professional player.

Rope ladders are also good too. There are a lot of exercises on a Frank Farina DVD put out by Football Federation Australia a few years ago.

I wish I could help more.

Bend your knees, it'll shift your weight forward onto your toes and help your reaction time to stuff going on around you.

I have no formal reasoning, its just what I do myself. To be fair I'm on the much shorter side of 1.85, so its a bit easier for us little blokes to get lower to the ground :p

So i figured this is the best place to ask this or post it.

Im a defender. Im a fairly tall bloke, about 1.85 in height and weigh 70kg. My biggest problem is getting my legs moving. Im often very flat footed on the floor and my legs just dont want to get a move on when i run and stuff. They feel very weighted and lacty.

The other problem i have is my shot. I used to have a good shot on me before, now i cant get any power at all behind the ball. Absolute tosh all. Most of my shots are placements with no real power at all. I often tends to be off balance a lot when taking a shot.

Anybody out there wanting to help please or suggest exercises i could or should be doing to improve in the areas ive noted.