 It can be difficult to practice defending on your own, but in this video, I want to show you soccer drills for defenders. That pass is coming as that ball gets there, boom, you want to be here. Okay, so focus on closing quickly is number one, but this drill, what you're going to do is I'm going to close him down, close him down and then practice kind of jockeying back into space. Go again, close him down, jockeying, staying low, jockeying back into space, kind of trap him one way. So one, speed of the drill, speed of the close. At this point, now I'm getting cautious. Now I'm not running in crazy. He's in my defensive third, I'm getting cautious. If I run directly at him, set up like this, two ways for him to go, three ways for him to go. What I want to do is think about trapping him, pushing him one way. Let's say I want to take him to the sideline. So I'm going to close quickly, but I'm going to curve my run. So I know where he's going, I'm pushing him this way. So practice curving your run, then practice keeping him into that space. Good, if I want to bring him this way, curve my run. Opening up the body, play it to the other side, go again. Practice opening up the body, facing the field. The field's this way now, facing the field. Switch of play, okay? And you can let that ball roll across your body or hit it with a bit more pace. Now we're playing two touch and play, okay? Switching feet, first step of this drill is opening up the body, seeing the field, not closing yourself off when I know I want to go that way. Receiving in half turn, so I can switch the ball quickly. The other thing is the quality of your pass. As a defender, you need to be an expert passer. You can't give the ball away. Best defenders have very high passing percentage completion, okay? So when you're playing that pass, focus on the quality of the pass. Get over the ball, open your foot, strong contact, aim for a spot on the wall, hit that spot, go again. Yes, good, play. In this drill, we're going to do some long passing. And if you only have one ball, find a wall, ping it against that wall, let it bounce back to you. Go again. But if you have a few balls and you want to try hitting it into a net, just get that ball out of your feet, play a driven pass, good technique, into the net, try to hit the back of the net without the ball bouncing, okay? So, good technique. So as I said, it's better for you to practice off a dribble. It's more realistic. Get that ball down, good technique. Playing with both feet, there we go, beautiful. First, just practice good contact off the forehead. As a defender, a lot of times, maybe you're doing a defensive clearance. Okay, so you can practice going up, going high, okay? But this is a good way to get that technique. Can't be scared of the ball as a defender. Practice good contact off the forehead, snapping with the body, okay? The more power you want, the more you have to generate from the hips, from the upper body, from the neck, but developing confidence with your heading skills.