 Hey, what's up guys today? I have a long ball tutorial for you and if you're currently struggling with your long passing This tutorial is for you. Let me start by saying that long passing is one of the more difficult skills to master Especially to be consistent with both feet. However, it is one of the most gratifying It's a really great feeling when you can get that ball out of your feet and ping it across the field over Everyone's head making it land on your teammate's foot. It's also a great skill to have for any player Especially players who play in the defensive and midfielder positions So as you can see here, I'm pinging some long balls with my friend Luke We're at the field and I thought hey, let's put up the tripod and we just played long balls for about 10 minutes But this is a great opportunity to analyze our technique to help you guys improve So the first thing I want you to notice is that we are switching feet every single time the first time the ball comes To me I'll try to take a touch with my left foot and set my left side The next time the ball comes to me I will take a touch with my right foot and set my right side a lot of you are complaining that your technique or your skills Aren't good enough with your weak foot. Honestly, I don't believe in a weak foot Both of your feet should be the same if you are using them the same amount, especially in practice So if you really want to improve your weak foot, it's all about those repetitions So let's look at technique number one first touch You need to get that ball out of your feet if it's too close to you It's going to be really hard to hit a nice long ball So you want a first touch that's going to allow you to take a couple strides into the ball The second thing I want you to think about is your point of address as you can notice I'm attacking the ball from about a 45 degree angle I'm not running at it straight on if I'm running on it straight on it's going to be really difficult for me to Make the ball go straight just because of the natural tendency or the natural kicking motion of my leg So you want to think about attacking the ball from a bit of an angle from the side almost After that, I want you to think about a nice flowing kicking motion If you're just having a really short backswing It's going to be difficult to generate that power and get that distance So you want a backswing that's almost touching your butt and a follow through It doesn't have to be really long. In fact, you almost want a short follow through that kind of chops through the ball So think about a nice flowing backswing. I'm kicking my butt and my follow through I want to make sure that my foot is flexed pointing towards my target at the point that it makes contact with the ball So the final point I want you to think about is your foot contact really flexing your foot Now before I get to that I just wanted to highlight this clip here as you can see I pinged the ball with my left foot My touch came a bit in front of me on my right side, but I wanted to hit it with my left So look at how I adjusted my body to come from the side If I didn't come to the side like that and I just tried to strike it with my left foot It would have been all the way to the right. So the point of address is very important Now let's get back to what I was talking about on foot technique You really want a nice flexed foot same thing you would do when you're shooting. However Your foot is opened up more. So yes, my toes are still pointed down. My foot is flexed. It's very firm But I'm striking under the ball rather than through the ball And I'm really making sure that my toes and my foot stays firm and flexed at the point of contact If you're flexing your foot, but when you're hitting the ball your foot is going weak and limp You won't have a very straight or long long pass. So I hope these tips help you out Now I want you to actually look at my friend Luke's technique because he's really good with long balls He's actually probably more consistent than I am especially with both feet and he definitely gets more distance So just take a little look at his technique. He's really nice and relaxed. There's nothing tense about his movement Especially on his right foot. He hits a really nice long ball as you should see here Nice swinging flowing motion. He's got a nice flex foot and he's hitting on the bottom of the ball Now when you're hitting this ball, you probably want to hit on the center But on the bottom of the ball forcing it to go upwards like when you're shooting you're pushing through the ball here You're almost chopping under the ball or brushing under the ball. So you should be able to grasp look at this technique right here It's a great example Feeling the grass coming off your toes and then you're making contact with the ball Underneath the ball on the bottom of the ball in the center of the ball Striking through the ball nice flexed feet and as he releases that point where he makes contact His toes are pointing towards the target. Yes Your foot will come across your body on your right and come across your body with your left But at that point of contact you want your toes pointing towards your target So I hope you found this video helpful It might be a good idea to watch this video a couple times Especially the slow motion to get a better idea and most importantly you need to learn to analyze your technique You need to look at your bad strikes or your bad passes and you need to ask yourself Okay, why did it go right? Why did it go left? Why didn't it go far enough? Why did it go too far and When you learn to analyze yourself you will become a better player instantly So don't just get frustrated when you have a bad pass actually analyze your technique in an effort to make yourself better