Victory or defeat is often determined by a successful shot on goal. Goals make soccer interesting, in fact they may be considered the icing on the cake. But to score a goal the player also needs other skills, such as coordination, take-off power/explosiveness, passing, receiving and controlling the ball, dribbling, and good one-on-one playing ability. It is important to remember that the bulk of a player's actions during a game on the field consist of movements. Good conditioning and technique combined with mental toughness are good basic prerequisites for successful goal scoring. This book highlights all of these facets and shows them as tried-and-tested approaches in a number of sample exercises.

Essential Soccer Skills progresses from beginner basics to advanced techniques, featuring illustrated sequences on how to learn and master key skills, and tips on how to improve your overall form. Essential Soccer Skills covers everything from the basics and rules of the game to the types of players--goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, attackers--to skills and team tactics like stepovers, heading, and volleying. Essential Soccer Skills is the go-to guide for anyone interested in learning more about soccer and becoming a better player.

A guide to the basic skills, tactics, and rules of soccer as well as information about diet, training, equipment and more.

Everything kids need to know about their favorite sport including up-to-date stats and information on players and teams in this revised, updated edition of The Everything Kids’ Soccer Book. Your kids can finally learn everything they could ever need or want to know about soccer in this revised and updated edition of The Everything Kids’ Soccer Book. Young soccer fans will learn fun and exciting ways to perfect their passing, shooting, and dribbling skills and master the fancy footwork needed to becoming a soccer superstar. This new edition features up-to-date information about the MLS and the World Cup teams as well as dozens of interactive games and puzzles to keep them entertained. No matter what level of soccer player your child is, this book makes learning about the world’s favorite sport—almost—as fun as playing it!

Describes techniques soccer players use to shoot the ball into the goal. Step-by-step instructions of drills are included to improve shooting skill. Includes biographies of famous soccer players.

The key to successful coaching is preparing your players to make intelligent decisions on the field. For years, the best-selling Skills & Strategies for Coaching Soccer has helped coaches of every level do just that. Now, soccer’s premier coaching resource has been updated and expanded to provide you with more insights into developing individual talent, team tactics, and winning play. Skills & Strategies for Coaching Soccer provides you with over 125 drills for teaching skills and techniques. You’ll also learn how to develop these skills in realistic game situations with beginning, intermediate, advanced, and all-star players. Essential skills are presented, including collecting and controlling, passing, dribbling, kicking, heading, and goalkeeping. You’ll then apply those individual skills with attacking and defensive tactics, team formations, and set pieces. With Skills & Strategies for Coaching Soccer, you’ll learn the what, how, and why of soccer through these essentials: Over 125 drills for beginning, intermediate, advanced, and all-star players Progressing basic drills into realistic, competitive situations Tactics in attack and defense Tactics in set plays Team management Mental and physical preparation for games Handling problem players and parents Fitness and conditioning Preparing and developing coaching sessions Establishing a coaching philosophy Skills & Strategies for Coaching Soccer is an invaluable guide for coaching any team in any setting. The best team doesn’t always win—but it usually does.

Fun and exciting tips soccer tips and techniques for kids—along with puzzles and games!—in this new and up-to-date edition of the Everything Kids’ Soccer Book. Every year, more and more children join the exciting world of soccer—is your child one of them? Help them be the best player they can be, with this helpful and informative guide to one of the popular youth sports in the US! In the latest edition of The Everything Kids’ Soccer Book, kids will find practical tips, rules, and guidance on how to perfect their passing, shooting, and dribbling skills and master the fancy footwork to become a soccer pro in no time. With plenty of puzzles and games included along the way, now learning about soccer can be—almost—as fun as playing it!

Are you stuck at home or unable to get access to a soccer field? Are you worried about a lack of practice and reduced fitness? This book is your answer. Whether it's a pandemic caused by an extremely infectious pathogen or a harsh winter that causes 10 feet of snow to pile up on the soccer field, there are times when soccer takes a back foot. As we have discovered, soccer isn't more important than life or death, despite the claims to the contrary. So many coaching books require complex equipment, copious resources and fantastic facilities. In writing ‘Practice Soccer at Home’, we are seeking to offer a guide for those times when we train alone, in our back yard, with little more than a ball and our immediate environment. Undertaking this additional work is important whether we are professionals seeking to perfect our technique at the highest level (why else would top professionals build home gyms into their luxurious houses?) or, more relevantly for this book, keen amateurs or youth players looking to develop our own game. With jobs to hold down, school to attend and such like, it is unlikely that, in the best of times, we will get more than two formal training sessions per week, plus a match at the weekend. Realistically, it is likely to be just one session. In order to maximise our potential, we must do some work on our skills and endurance alone. The most practical place for many of us is to undertake this training at home. Why get in the car to drive to the gym or park if we have a back yard we could use instead? The answer is, of course, what to do in the back yard, and what to do it with! This book provides some answers to those questions.

Publisher Description

WARNING: This is not a goalkeeping book. From the best-selling author of Soccer iQ comes a book dedicated to teaching and organizing a back four. Coach Dan Blank led the Southeastern Conference's best defense at two different universities in consecutive years. It began with a handbook he created for his defenders that ensured everyone was on the same page. Shutout Pizza is a vastly expanded version of that handbook. It introduces the governing principles that guided the SEC's best defenses, and covers a broad spectrum of scenarios that commonly occur during matches. Shutout Pizza is packed with diagrams that will help the reader visualize the concepts discussed in the text, and includes several of most effective drills for training these concepts. This is an excellent book for coaches and players who want to defend more effectively.