How to Properly Kick a Soccer Ball
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After weeks of practice, you’ll start to pick it up. Then I remember the next season I grew taller and my foot grew longer. I had a size 12 shoe at age 12. All of a sudden I couldn’t chip the ball or do several other things very well. I was clumsy for a year or so due to the sudden growth. It’s important to learn how to kick a soccer ball properly, know it takes time, and keep practicing.
Proper mechanics matter more than power
Before you go out and start using all these tips to kick the soccer ball harder, make sure you are hitting it the right way.
More important than just kicking a ball is how we do it.
Your opposite arm needs to be out away from your body, both knees bent.
If you’re kicking with your right, your left arm should come out away from your body.
You should be leaning a little bit to the left.
Leaning will allow you to have balance and for your foot to be at a better angle. Vice Versa when kicking with your left foot.
Where you plant depends on if you’re bending or striking with laces.
If laces, then the plant foot (opposite of the kicking foot) needs to be at the right spot. Not too close to your foot and not too far away. Not too far out in front and not under you.
Wait… and what about lean back or forward and getting both feet on the ground and landing on your shooting foot.
This all matters more than trying to get the ball hard.
Bending the ball, you would plant closer.
Kick a soccer ball with the laces for backspin
Besides the push pass, this is what coaches want you to learn first.
The thing is, some players I believe naturally learn or do better bending the ball with the inside of the foot.
Depending on the situation in a game there are usually 1 or 2 better ways to kick the ball.
Being stationary compared to dribbling or running with the ball is different.
When striking with the top of the foot [laces] you want the ball to go straight. Point your hips, and plant your foot and shoulders where you want the ball to go. Also, you need to have both knees bent a little.
The more you have your plant leg bent, the more you can get under the ball to it up high.
See me below working with Sydney, a University of Texas Longhorns player.
Syd has trained with me since she was 9 years old. We still work on getting the most important details ironed out.
Striking with the laces is the 1 main skill you really want to get right!
Notice how she lands on her kicking foot. This is not the only way to hit it with the laces, but you need to practice it.
If a D1 college player needs to keep practicing, don’t you think a younger player needs to?
After you strike through, make sure your hips and shoulders stay at the target. For more power and to help the legs not do all the work, keep your core contracted [flexed tight]. Then line up your foot and body the right way, next to the ball.
See below how we work on muscle memory with her left foot.
When you get both feet off the ground when kicking
By far one of the best techniques you can learn is how to get both feet off the ground.
One thing I want to make sure of is you don’t have to get both feet off the ground on every kick. I have watched videos of coaches telling players they have to get both feet off the ground.
The main time you want to get both feet off the ground is when you are dribbling or running forward. Your momentum will carry you as you strike it, which will allow you more body weight. This means you get more power.
If you are stationary it will be hard to do this and sometimes wouldn’t make sense.
Bending the ball with the inside, you wouldn’t usually get both feet off the ground. Look at a video of David Beckham and you’ll see what I mean.
Another thing to practice is bending with the outside. Sometimes you will get both feet off the ground, other times you won’t. Mostly it depends on the momentum you carry.
Getting both feet off the ground gives you more power
The reason for getting both feet off the ground when you kick is simply to give you more power.
Think about it…
If you kick the ball and only allow your kicking foot to get behind it, you only have the weight of your one leg. If you get both feet off the ground it allows you to get all of your body weight behind the ball.
More body weight behind the ball means more power.
Growth spurts mess with your game
So often kids are 8, 10, and 12 years old and can kick the ball high and far. Then all of a sudden within weeks they can’t kick the ball as well.
Sudden growth spurts can cause small setbacks. The extra half an inch of leg length can make it totally different in terms of muscle memory, mechanics, and habits.
Every year kids across the world are having to relearn how to kick the ball because of growth spurts.
Players usually relearn in a shorter amount of time from what they have already learned.
What most select players are thinking before the kick
Remember I have been teaching private lessons for a living going on over a dozen years.
When I ask kids [ages 11-15+] how they are about to ‘kick’ the ball, they say “I don’t know, I’m just going to hit it“.
It’s one thing if these kids are 8-10 years old, but these are 12-14+-year-old kids who have pretty good club coaches.
Soccer is deep and there is so much to learn.
If you don’t work on your own, outside of team practice you just won’t get the technique to set in. You will be a player that just “kicks”, instead of knowing how to properly kick a soccer ball.
Bending the soccer ball inside
Bending the ball can get just as much power as striking with the laces.
Most youth players even in high school don’t learn this well enough in my opinion.
As a youth, my soccer coach [Alvin Alexander] introduced it to us at a team practice. Some of us took advantage, working on it in our backyard or the park. These are the players that showed improvement more than the rest.
You have to work with the ball on your own too!
Typically bending with the inside you don’t get both feet off the ground, but you can for more power. If hitting a dead ball [freekick] do this.
As you go to strike the ball your toes are down, but as you strike through bring your toes up.
Getting bend is totally different and weird for the muscles.
Muscle memory is used to the toes staying up the whole time with the push pass or staying down with the laces.
Bending the ball with the outside
Bending with the outside you can get both feet off the ground, but many times you don’t.
Your toes can stay down while striking or coming up.
If you want power keep your toe down, but if you want more bend/spin bring the toes up and barely edge the ball.
It all depends on if you want power or not if it’s a light pass around someone, or how much time you have to release the ball.
Brazilian legend, Roberto Carlos would bend free kicks with the outside of the laces. If you YouTube “best freekick ever” Roberto Carlos highlight will pop up. A game Brazil vs Italy is when he scored it and it will forever go down as the greatest free-kick. The best part was the ball was traveling towards a ball boy on the side of the goal, right before it bent in the goal. Learn more about why bending is useful in soccer.
Chipping for short distances & height
One of the hardest ways to kick a soccer ball is by chipping!
There are players I have trained, who are high school or even college players who can’t chip a proper ball. The ones that can do it, will admit that chipping with their weaker foot is so difficult.
Learn how to chip by reading this post here.
Knowing the proper way to kick a soccer ball is not easy.
All these different techniques to learn and teach make it very hard for a coach to teach a full team.
This is the reason you need to get private or small group training.
Inside “push pass” to kick a soccer ball
So for this, you want to connect with the inside of the foot, where your toe will be pointed more up than down. Just below the top shoelace hole is a bone on your foot that feels like the edge of a marble. This is the “sweet spot”. If you connect under that then the ball hits the muscle of your foot, which means you will lose the crisp pop you want.
Make sure you keep the inside of your foot following through toward the target, even after you connect.
The foot naturally wants to close, like it’s used to when you walk.
Behind every kick, there must be a thought…
How to get put into a position to shoot
Two main things, one is to develop ball control that makes sense and will help you in different situations.
Then you also want to know how to make it hard for the defenders who are trying to keep an eye out on you.
So when the defender is marking you without the ball, make it hard for them to see you.
If you’re a forward and the ball is on the other side of the field, go behind the defender every now and then.
Not all the time, but at least 4-5 times a game do this.
Even if you go off-side for a moment, as long as you get back on early enough you won’t be called. This makes it stressful for defenders, which is what you want.
For more on how to get into the position click here.
Warm up before you kick a soccer ball with power
One thing you will see players doing wrong at every level is shooting before they are warmed up. Doing this can injure the hip flexor, quad, knee, and back.
Especially for ages 13+ because their muscles are not as flexible as youngsters.
The proper way to kick a soccer ball takes a lot from the body. Even for me a grown man, retired pro. There have been and still are times when I kick a ball and feel pain in the hip or knee. But only when I don’t warm up well, hit a lot of balls in one day, or did a lot a few days before.
Remind yourself or your players over and over
Just like kids forget to turn the lights off in their room, they forget what part of the foot to use when kicking.
Kids also forget what part of the field most goals are scored.
These are 2 of the most important things a soccer player can know.
At the same time, kids are learning so much. In sports, at home, and in school.
Together we need to help each other and so for parents and coaches that means reminding.
For players, it also means reminding themselves. Think about what you learned and repeat it after. This helps you remember all you are learning.
Don’t just work on what you are good at. It’s important to work on all the ways to kick a soccer ball.
Enjoy yourself and keep up the hard work! Follow Footballterms to update more information.
