With around a 4 billion fan base, soccer is the number one sport worldwide. It’s more than important that children get involved in any sport from a young age. It helps them to gain skills, learn about teamwork if it’s a team sport, and also helps kids avoid straying and getting involved in things that can affect their mental and physical health, not to mention their academic work, and adult life.
Your kid might already be involved in soccer or you might want to introduce this exciting sport to them. So many of the world’s most renowned players didn’t have the means to practice clubs or camps when they were young, and would often just enjoy their sport in a public park or empty alleys with neighboring kids. Like any sport, soccer needs practice, but unlike many other sports, soccer hardly needs any equipment or gear, nor do you have to commute to a place with special facilities to practice. Almost anything you can do in a big field, you can do in your backyard. Here’s how.
But first off, you don’t want to put pressure on your child to perform well and be that type of ‘coach’. Motivate your child while also joining in on the training, when you can, to make it fun for both of you.
Practice basic soccer drills
You can start just by passing the ball around. Don’t always stop the ball to pass it, but also focus on passing a moving soccer ball on the ground. The reason you should pass a moving ball is that this is how it will be during a real game. Make sure you are practicing to be able to pass with either foot.
Your child also needs to practice the basics in shooting and dribbling. You can teach your kid to practice free kicks by collecting some unused items like a bucket, cones or stands and use them as obstacles. Has your kid take free kicks which will improve their free kick style. You could also show your kid how to dribble the ball around objects. This will help young players to learn how to keep close control of the ball.
Penalty shots
It’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to use an exterior wall of your house or a garage door as a makeshift goal to practice penalty shots. That can cause damage to your home’s exterior, not to mention awfully noisy for you and neighbors. But you can purchase a real goal, easy to set up in your backyard. You can see the backyard soccer goals at Quickplaysport.us here where there’s a variety of different goal sizes to suit not only your child’s age and size, but also the size of your backyard. As long as you have a goal set up, kids can easily practice their penalty shots and different kicks like a scissor or back kick. Of course if your kid’s position is the goalkeeper, a real goal will help his practice tremendously.
Juggling
Juggling is keeping the ball up in the air with your foot and is easily practiced in the backyard. If your child can juggle with ease in the backyard, then they’ll be able to control the ball much better during a real game. Controlling the ball in the air leads to better control when the ball is on the ground. You can find many videos online showing different techniques and different training drills for juggling and other soccer skills.
With lots of training and devotion, your kid could become one of the next superstars of soccer. It’s important that you be as enthusiastic as your child about the game and about the training and do your best to hone your child’s soccer skills. Teach your kids that individual training is just as big a part of improving their game as team training, if not more so.