 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. These are some soccer training drills for kids. And whether you're a coach, a parent, or a player you just want to improve your skills, this video is going to help you out 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. So, start with juggling. Your goal is to come back to the camera. Your goal is to get 25 touches on each body part. What do I mean by that? 25 right foot or your stronger foot? Hey, what's up? I hope you're finding this content helpful. Watch this all the way to the end if you want to find out which subscriber got this video's special shout out. 25 left foot or your 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. Also, as I always talk about, 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 staffed to set records every training practice. With 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. Okay, but I want you to try to get 25 of all those touches. Right foot, left foot, right thigh, left thigh. Okay, let's just talk about how to improve that a little quicker. So the strength of the touch, if it's too weak, you're not going to be able to keep that rhythm. 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. 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. Okay, because if I'm too slow with this, I'm not going to be able to keep the rhythm. And you need to get it high enough that you have enough time to get your thigh back up. Headers. A lot of kids struggle with headers because usually they're hitting it and the ball is going forward. It's not going straight up. So in order to do that, I have to get under the ball, make that ball go straight up. If you find your headers are going this way and you're chasing it everywhere, lean back a little more. It would be better for the ball to go backwards than forwards. 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. Put a good bend in the knees, find a good rhythm. I'm keeping my eyes open. I'm not scared of the ball. So those would be juggling. 25, beat your record on alternate. Footwork. This stuff, but I want you moving. Once you get the foundation, I want you moving forward and backwards. 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. So work on those forward drills. When you're doing these, the touches are important, but focus on the lightness of foot. Because if I'm trying to cut and I'm flat-footed, even if I do have a cut, I'm not going to get away from anyone. Okay, so the movement, it's sharp here. The knees are bent. The feet are quick. Anytime I'm changing direction, I always talk about bend the knees, get lower to the ground. Okay, but you could do different footwork drills like that. These are footwork drills I always used to do. Beel-Co-Aver. Beel-Co-Aver. Who is that? He's the Dutch. The Dutch genius. Used to do these in the basement when I was eight years old. And now it still serves me. So encourage your kids to do those training exercises. Next, I would go into shooting. And if you're a young kid or a beginner and you're just starting, you don't need to be shooting from way back there. Because you probably don't even have the proper technique. All you want to focus on in the beginning is getting good contact off the laces. And I'm shooting from point-blank range. But I'm not focused on hitting corners at all in the beginning. I'm just focused on getting good contact. Building confidence in my feet. Feeling the difference from a bad shot and a good shot. Okay, so if you have a net like this where it comes back to you, or a wall, or a little rebounder, 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 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. And I still am analyzing and tweaking my technique every single day. So don't think it's something that stops. Improvement never stops. As you get older, you just keep getting better and you can get better and better as you get older because you become smarter in the way that you get outside of yourself and look at what you're doing wrong. It's tough to do that when you're a kid. What? A couple of things for the shooting technique for you to practice in the beginning. 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 ball that goes forward with forward spin and even dips and swerves if you hit it right in the middle. Okay, but strong, 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 flowings, follow-through. Follow-through towards the target. Don't follow-through across the body. Follow-through towards the goal. So as a kid, juggling those forward drills, those dribbling drills, moving with the ball, getting lots of touches, shooting with both feet. Your first goal is just to get comfortable with Lace's technique.