When I make the rounds in youth league games where I live I see that goal kicks are a constant struggle for young kids. To be completely honest I relate to the frustration that a lot of these youngsters feel, because throughout my career this was never a strong part of my game at all. Oddly enough, the fact that it was a struggle of mine puts me perhaps in a better position to be able to talk about how to take a goal kick in soccer. Because, I feel that a lot of the elements that go into a good goal kick are lost in the pursuit of big kicks. I can see that clueless youth league coach in my head now, yelling “big kick”.
Let’s get this out of the way already, length is not the only thing that’s important in goal kicks. You can still kick relatively far, but if you put the ball in the wrong place that could lead to a counter that will see you concede a goal. Now, if you kick short then aiming your kicks becomes all the more important. A short goal kick that ends up in the middle of the field is the worst case scenario. I’m getting a bit too ahead of myself here, so let’s just get going with how to take a goal kick in soccer!
Everything Is In The Set-Up
A couple of years back I watched a video of Chinese kids training to be Olympic weightlifters. I can’t be sure whether the video was legit or not, and I’m not necessarily suggesting we take advice from China on all things related to children, but this was interesting. The kids would be taught weightlifting techniques without necessarily having to lift a ton of weight. When it comes to goal kicks we should essentially be doing the same thing. It’s like building a golf swing. What you want is for your plant foot to reach beside the ball first, and come in with the kicking foot behind it and hit almost under the ball with the laces.
Guess what, the first 100, 200, or even more goal kicks are probably going to look awful. The first thing that you have to get down though is the run-up. If that technique is performed the right way on a consistent basis as you get older, and you get naturally stronger the ball is going to travel further. You can literally have it down to a science. How far away from the ball do you want to be? I don’t want to say in terms of steps, because that’s going to vary with age and leg strength. I’ve seen 3 step, 4 step, or even 5 step goal kicks work. You want to make sure that the end result is the plant foot next to the ball and the kicking foot coming in perfectly behind hitting the ball with the laces.
Hitting The Ball In The Right Spot Every Time
Again this is exactly what I’m talking about. As you get older/ stronger you may start wanting to shorten your launch position. You’ll be able to kick full power within 3 steps like American football kickers do. Remember though, even they get a running start on kick offs. That’s what you’re able to do on a goal kick. Don’t limit your drop to maybe 2 or 3 steps particularly at an early age. Really how far you stand away from the ball doesn’t matter as long as you’re able to hit the ball in the right spot. As I mentioned the final motion should see the plant foot reach the ball with the kicking foot in behind. You have to get the laces on almost the bottom of the ball to get it to go.
I can’t overstate this, there’s no other way to perfect this other than to practice, practice, and practice some more. It can get really frustrating because the motion is going to feel like second nature to some kids while others have more trouble. That’s just a fact of life and if you’re someone who ‘s been able to create a shooting motion very early on you’re going to be ahead of the game. Still making sure that you get in your practice goal kicks after your regular training is going to take you places. As I mentioned, this is like golf where you have to find a motion that you’re comfortable with, which would be your “swing” in the golf analogy. The point of contact should be the same regardless of your swing.
Is Toe Kicking A No-no?
For goal kicks the answer is going to be yes. If you’re in a compromising situation in a regular play and your best chance to avoid danger is to toe kick the ball out of bounds go ahead and do just that. The thing with goal kicks is that you’re supposed to have all the time in the world that you need to be able to set up and use the right technique. In the early 2000s when I was playing soccer in the public youth leagues of Southern California toe punching was the law of the land. Things have certainly changed since then, at least I hope so.
The problem with toe kicking is that you really can’t give the ball the desired direction, which is one of the most important things about goal kicks. Come to think of it, I can’t believe that I haven’t gotten to the direction of goal kicks by this point in the article. Anyway, the hardest bone in the foot is located within the laces area that’s why you want to lead with that, and not your toes which are not going to take so well to regularly striking the ball. It can be frustrating because the big kid that toe punches can send some rockets sometimes in the youth game. Remember that you’re in it for the long haul, and proper technique is going to pay off sooner or later.
Length Is Going To Come With Time & Potentially Fitness Work
Don’t get frustrated with a lack of length on goal kicks. If you get the ball around the midfield area of the field that you’re playing in you’re going to be more or less ok. Would it be great if you could put the ball almost in the other box? Sure, that’s a good add-on to your game. It shouldn’t be a make or break deal though. If you’re 12, 13, 14 years old or older, and you feel that you’re lacking some length on your goal kicks the first step is always going to be to revise your technique. If that’s not on point you’re going to have trouble getting anywhere.
At that age though moving into the teens years you can start adding off the field fitness work to your routine. There are a ton of different ways that you can build up power on those legs. I wouldn’t necessarily say that you should be running to the leg press, but sooner or later that is going to be part of your routine as a goalkeeper. Jogging though, swimming, and even upping the ante in your regular goalkeeper training with more intense jumping exercises and things like that are going to help you build up leg strength. That combined with the proper technique that I’ve been preaching this whole article should help you kick further. If you’re putting the work in the right way there’s no reason why you would fail at this.
Where To Kick Is Just As Important As How Far You Kick
I can’t believe I’ve gotten this far in the article without talking about this. Where you kick is going to be the most important thing that you have to account for. It becomes particularly important when you don’t necessarily kick the ball all that far. So in the youth game this is key. However, I see kids just kicking the ball right down the middle of the field, leaving it short and allowing the other team to generate chances on goal. Sometimes the justification for this is that they’re too young to know better, and that they are too young to kick far. Precisely because you don’t kick far you need to make sure that you aim the kick. Where do you want to aim the kick? Usually it’s going to be towards the sideline.
The reason why you want to aim the kick towards the sideline is because if it goes out of bounds you’re not in terrible shape. You can start pressing as a defense from the spot, but you get a chance as a team to get into position before the ball is put back in play. At the same time you’re usually going to be able to avoid the congested middle of the field. A lot of times on the wings you’ll get 1v1s with your players and the defenders. Obviously this gives your guys a better chance to win the ball. Again even if you lose the ball your team is usually going to be in a better position to be able to recover from losing the ball.
Don’t Get Bored Of Practicing
This is something that we can apply to any part of the game. For example, I would recommend that you don’t get bored of practicing your catching technique. The famous basketball player Kobe Bryant always talked about working on his fundamentals. Ultimately he mentioned that he wasn’t scared about game situations because he had practiced those scenarios over a thousand times. The same is true in goalkeeping and goal kicks in particular. I’ve mentioned that there are different things that you can do to get better. Primarily putting in the work to make sure that your legs are stronger. It’s not like the guys that kick the ball furthest are always massive bodybuilders. In fact that’s rarely the case.
Most of the time it’s the guys with the best technique that are going to be able to kick the ball the furthest. When it comes to goal kicks you have to accept the fact that you’re probably going to take more than the thousand goal kicks that Kobe talked about, and you may still be quite bad! This is a skill that can be developed, but at the same time it comes more naturally to some goalkeepers than it does to others. I go back to what I talked about with specific examples of pro goalkeepers. There are guys that have reached the top of the mountain in the goalkeeping world and they are not great at goal kicks!
How To Take A Goal Kick In Soccer – Dos & Don’ts – Conclusion
I may have understated aim throughout the whole article. Before writing it, where to aim a goal kick was meant to be one of the most important parts of the article. In the flow of things I think that point may have gotten moved back in importance. In reality even if you kick the ball kind of short, which is normal at the early stages, when you aim it right you’ll at least be avoiding mistakes. A lot of times that’s the reality of goal kicks for goalkeepers. Sure we want to help jump start the next attack. The first thing that you want to avoid though is jump starting the attack, but for the opposition. The best way to be able to do that is to aim the ball anywhere but the center of the field. Don’t cross the field with your goal kick either!
Finally, this is something that you’re going to get better at through practice. There’s just no way around that. Don’t get discouraged if the first kicks that you do are ugly. The fact of the matter is, all of our first couple of kicks were ugly. There are also plenty of us that didn’t follow our own advice and therefore never got that much better. Don’t get bored of practicing!
