 If you're a player, I want to help you improve faster than you have in the past. If you're a coach or a parent, I want to give you some soccer training drills that you can use to help your kids improve a little quicker. Rather than just doing random stuff, I want to give you some stuff that I was taught at a young age that really helped me develop my technical skill faster than most players. Your goal is to get 25 touches on each body part. So what do I mean by that? 25 left foot. Where you're weaker foot, but if you've been following me, you know I do not like the phrase weak foot. You have two strong feet. Then 25 right thigh. 25 left thigh. And 25 headers. Okay, that's where I want you to start. If you're a kid, that should be your first juggling goals. Just left, right, good rhythm, alternating feet. Can you get to 500? 100 first milestone. First major milestone. Whatever your record is right now, just try to beat it. Get to 100, be excited about that. 500, then 25, 25, 25. But when we were kids, we used to have to set records every training practice. So if right now I wrote down on my sheet, my right foot was 16. The next time I came back to practice, it better be at least 17. Or the coach was going to say, you haven't been practicing. So use those numbers as targets to challenge yourself. So if you're struggling and the ball is just dying, flex up that foot, tighten up your technique, hit it a little harder into your face. I'd rather you do that. I would rather you hit the ball into your face, then hit it down on the ground and it dies. Okay, so it's better to hit it too hard in the beginning. And you might smack yourself in the face. That's fine. Then too weak. Okay, the other thing is the speed of my feet. I'm not flat footed. I'm not like this. Okay, I'm sharp on my toes every touch. I'm putting it down. I'm back up. I'm reacting. If the ball goes, I go with it. You can also add 25 of these mini touches with balance here. Focus on the touch, but also the balance in the supporting leg. Spread the toes, make a nice flat surface, a strong base, strong foundation. And these are just little touches off my toe. And I'm kind of just lifting the knee. I'm not even moving the ankle. I'm just lifting the knee. On the sides, it's about making contact in the middle. If this contact is off to the side, that's going to be tough for me to get there. And then it's also the quickness, the sharpness of this. But all I'm talking about here is analyzing your touches. If every time you screw up and it goes that way, don't let yourself do that again. If anything, go the exact opposite way and then you'll find somewhere in the middle. I'm going to work this stuff, but I want you moving. Once you get the foundation, I want you moving forward and backwards. Okay? Touches like that. Touches like this. Keep the ball moving, especially as your legs get heavy. Good. Inside, outside. And always both feet. You don't know how many 30-year-old men I play with that only have one foot. Don't be one of those. Any time I'm changing direction, I always talk about bend the knees, get lower to the ground. Okay, but you can do different footwork drills like that. I don't want you shooting from 30 yards away because I want you getting repetitions. As a kid, I just want you getting thousands and thousands of repetitions. So if you can start from a young age, striking the ball left, right. Just like we juggle left, right. Just like we dribble left, right. Striking the ball left, right. Just getting good repetition. Start that at a young age. When you're a teenager, when you're an older player and an adult player, you're going to have two left or two strong feet. You're going to be able to go both ways. You're going to be difficult to defend. You're going to score more goals because you can shoot with both feet. It's going to serve you in the long run. So before we leave, let's just talk about the shooting technique. Flex foot, strong contact. You always hear this. You always talk about it. Point the toes down. Lock the ankle. Lock the calf. Lock the quad. Tighten the upper body. Okay, so strong body. If anything is weak, the shot is weak. It's going to be a lot of backspin. You want a bullet that goes forward with forward spin and even dips and swerves if you hit it right in the middle. Okay, but strong foot contact. Pause the body. Don't let the body sway to one side or the other. And focus on the follow through. Nice flowing swing. Nice flowing back swing. Flowing front swing. And hit the middle of the ball. I can feel, I can see where it goes. If I'm not focused and I'm not hitting the center of the ball, I can feel the difference. You need to learn to feel the difference between a good shot and a bad shot. Big flowing follow through. Follow through towards the target. Don't follow through across the body. Follow through towards the goal.