The Importance of Scrimmage

Soccer players can benefit greatly from having scrimmages. No matter how many drills, passes, and patterns you run, nothing can truly match a good scrimmage. Coaches should be wary of creating competition within a team, and should make sure to rotate team members for scrimmage games. Another benefit to the team as a whole is that scrimmages are great times to let players try and understand other soccer positions. Scrimmage can also build confidence for your players as they score goals for the first time, block passes, and practice all of their techniques in one match. The greatest advantage to a scrimmage is seeing your team's strengths and weaknesses play out. Coaches can even pause a scrimmage game, alert the team to a problem, and let them work on it for the duration of the game. Scrimmage is also a great form of exercise for your team.

Doubling Up

A great technique that you can use during your soccer practice is to double up. This practice is when you perform a soccer exercise with two soccer balls instead of one. It works especially well with exercises designed to improve passing, shooting, trapping, and defending the goal. Having two balls during practice makes having one ball during a game less challenging. Players will not be as stressed out or worried, but will also be used to planning ahead as they play. Doubling up during practice can also increase endurance, as players will have to work twice as hard in order to accomplish the same drills. Keep in mind that though doubling up allows them to refine their skills, it does not allow them to learn those skills in the first place. Beginning players should begin with just one ball.

Developing Flexibility as a Soccer Player

Flexibility is important to soccer players; without it, they are at risk for injury. It is all too easy for soccer players to overextend themselves and cause muscle or ligament damage. All soccer players should learn how to stretch properly, and do so daily. The responsibility to learn safe stretching exercises lies with the players and with their coaches. Stretching should take the first 15 minutes of practice, and coaches and players should remember to implement some cool-down stretching exercises after the game. Some stretches soccer players need are pretty simple; others are quite complex. You should never perform a stretch unless you know how to do it, as proper stretching can also cause problems and injuries. Remember to stretch well and stretch often to ensure muscle flexibility.

Equipment for Improving Goal Shooting

If you want to become better at shooting goals, accuracy is one of the best areas to work on. You can choose from a variety of equipment options to help you improve your accuracy. One idea is to buy a set of soccer net targets, which can be directly attached to soccer nets. These help you aim at a specific area of the goal. The benefit to these targets is that they can be moved around, so you can improve your ability to shoot at a variety of angles into the net. Keep in mind that as you practice, you should try to perfect each shot from several different directions. You may also want to practice headers with these targets. You can also purchase more technologically advanced targets that measure the speed of your ball, so that you can improve the strength and speed of your kick along with your accuracy. If you are planning to spend some time practicing on your own, you can maximize your practice time by buying a rebounding net and attaching your targets to that.