 In this video I wanna help you become more successful when taking dead balls. It's one of the hardest skills to master but one of the most rewarding. I'm actually becoming a lot better at it simply because I've been putting in the practice, analyzing professionals and analyzing my own technique constantly. So a few things for you to think about. First of all, it all starts like I always talk about in your head. Okay, if you're having negative thoughts before you even take the shot, you're thinking about the ball going out for a throw in or an easy shot into the keeper's hands, putting it high over the net. Once you're thinking about all these things, and visualizing them, it's gonna happen when you take the shot. So you need to learn to control your thoughts, control your visualizations. So talk to yourself positively when you put that ball down, say, this is a great goal scoring opportunity, I'm gonna get this on net, I'm gonna focus on good technique, I'm gonna control everything I control, block out all the negative stuff. Visualize this ball coming off your foot. Visualize the ball whipping, curling into the top corner, okay? Put those images in your mind and you're setting yourself up to succeed. So put the ball down on the spot, you can put a specific point on the ball, like an emblem if you want. Some people do that personally, I don't do that, I just put it on a nice patch of grass, some nice dead brown grass, somewhere where it's gonna stand still. Then my run up, it's pretty short. Now again, these are, this is how I take free kicks. You need to find a rhythm, you need to find a pattern, you need to find a technique that is comfortable for you. You have to be comfortable and you're only gonna get that if you go to the field and you put in the practice, you get the repetitions. If you just put the ball down on game day, you've never taken a free kick all week and you expect to score and then you miss and you're upset, you really don't deserve to be upset, okay? So you have to put in the practice, find out what works for you. This is what works for me. I'll put it down, I'll take probably three, four steps, something like this distance right here, not straight on like David Beckham style whipping around it, I'm more of like a 30 degree angle, something like this. Then when I'm approaching the ball, so I'm focusing on hitting with the inside of my foot. I don't do knuckle balls, I do a nice curling free kick. I think a knuckle ball is really unreliable, you might hit a good one out of every 10 or 20. So this is more consistent for me, I'm trying to hit off the inside of my foot, my big toe right there and I'm hitting kind of on the bottom of the ball. I wanna get it up over that wall and I want it to come down. Now, the way it comes down depends on my follow through but getting it over the ball, trying to hit not really low, but on the bottom third, if you're hitting and it's going too high, you're probably hitting too low on the ball. If it's going into the wall, you're probably hitting too high on the ball. So analyze your technique and make the changes. But again, I'm hitting with the inside of my big toe there, bottom of the ball. Now the follow through, for me this is the most important part of getting that whip on it and getting it to come back down. So you'll probably see some guys that'll take a free kick and they'll land on that shooting foot, something like that. That's what I try to do, but I really focus on carrying my follow through towards my target. So instead of hitting the ball and jumping and stopping dead on the spot like that, I'm instead trying to push through towards my target. So I'm really guiding the ball and pushing that ball on that path that I wanted to take. And then I'm landing on that shooting foot like I demonstrated, but I'm going forward with that technique. So it looks something like this, just like that. Okay, so I'm going through it. Now, when I'm looking at the wall, I'm actually really focusing on a spot above the wall. So yes, I am focused on the net. I'm focused on which spot I want to hit, which corner I want to hit, but I'm really focusing on getting it over the wall and then letting my technique handle the rest of it. So get it over the wall, focus on that good technique and you're likely that that ball is going to whip back on target. Now again, this is something you have to practice again and again, but check out these clips and try for yourself.