Soccer Fitness Training - How To Do It

Often called "The Beautiful Game", football, or soccer if you're from the United States, is unquestionably the most popular sport in the world.

It started with George Best in the 1960's, and now Soccer is the new rock and roll of our time with multi-million pound paydays, glamorous celebrity lifestyles and worldwide acclaim on offer for its top exponents. Sponsors and TV Companies also profit massively from the world-wide demand for the game and its domination of our TV Screens and popular culture shows no signs of flagging.

Not surprisingly therefore, how to actually train a soccer player to produce the goods on the pitch is big business for the coaches who know how. As an avid football fan for over 25 years I'm going to explain the best conditioning exercises currently known for the different player positions. I am not going to discuss ball control here because that is a separate topic:

The Goalkeeper

The Goalie has to go from a still position suddenly into a quick explosive movement. Powerlifting, reaction training and plyometrics should therefore be the mainstay of the training regime. A controlled low fat diet should also improve agility making it easier for the keeper to span the width of the goal at breakneck speed when required.

The Defender

Similar to the Keeper, the defender needs explosive bursts of energy and good reactions and agility. They also ideally need to be physically bigger to intimidate and impose themselves on the attacking strikers but still be able to run fast enough to keep up with them. Fullbacks need full body strength training but a high protein / low carbohydrate diet to avoid putting on too much weight which could slow them down. Reaction training is also a must here.

The Mid-Fielder

Mid-fielders need to do interval training interspersing sprints with longer runs to improve both their basic fitness and explosive power as they will need both to get them through 90 minutes of what will be a lot of running around (more so than with any other player position). Power lifting to achieve full body strength (but again not at the expense of speed) should also feature prominently to give extra authority to the tackles that will need to be made.

The Striker

Forwards need to train for speed and agility pure and simple. This means factoring in explosive twists and turns into their workouts. They also need good general fitness so they can run at a slower speed for longer periods of time to keep up with the pace of the game and stay in contention to capitalise on any opportunities that are created.

Conclusion

These tips are just general guidelines and obviously will need to be tweaked to fit the individual requirements of different athletes but hopefully the underlying principles should be clear. The more progress a player makes the more individualised his or her training can become.

It is important that any unique physical characteristics of a footballer (e.g. an unusually tall player) be taken into account when initially forming a training program and it is also important to constantly re-evaluate the training methods to find the right 'fit' for that particular individual.

To use an analogy from Boxing: behind every great fighter there is a great trainer. The best boxers in history often had very unconventional techniques but had trainers who recognised their particular talents and structured the training to allow for this. Muhammed Ali did everything wrong from a boxing textbook point of view but his trainer, Angelo Dundee, recognised his genius and allowed him to express himself in training, taking a much more 'hands off' approach than other boxing trainers of the day.

So perhaps the rule should be that there are no definitive 'hard and fast' rules but that if you combine the above basic principles with a flexible approach then the foundation for success can be achieved.

Gary Evans has been an avid football supporter for over 25 years. If you found the above information on soccer training useful, you can learn a lot more about how the world's elite players and coaches train for their soccer matches by clicking here: http://tinyurl.com/kqgdg

Soccer Betting Secrets Rule No.2 - Bet on what you know

It is hard enough working out who will win a football match without complicating things still further by betting on an a game when you know nothing about the teams or the league. Don't be tempted to place large amounts of money or even a little amount on an obscure match in the Chilean or Brazilian League just because you read one article on it. Most articles don't reveal all information about the game. So you need to do your homework finding and gathering as much information from reliable sources

If you consider the people involved ( the players, the referees, the managers) that means more than 30 variables (with substitutes). That doesn't even include variables like the state of the pitch, international call-ups, long-term injuries, financial implications, transfers, legal and disciplinary procedures and many more.

South American games seem exciting - until the bet loses. And when you find out (after the match) that a star forward was on international duty or great defender was out injured then you'll feel stupid. The bookmakers knew about this - that's why they set that tempting price.

I make my huge profit on the English Premier League and Spanish La Liga because I get to see extended coverage of EVERY game. You should put away your feeling about your favorite team when betting on soccer. As an avid punter, what important most is about winning money. You must not take sides on your favorite team simply because you will end up putting bets on their side just because they are your favorite team. This will not work in the long run when it comes to making money from soccer betting. This is one secret that is all the while out there that new punters just overlooked.

You can read more about my book "Make your bookie your ATM machine" at http://www.soccerbettingpro.com is you are really serious about making huge money from soccer betting.

Author is a full time soccer analyst and has been around soccer betting arena for more than 12 years. You can read my book on "Make Your Bookie Your ATM Machine" at http://www.soccerbettingpro.com

How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Rateform Method

How To Improve Your Soccer Bets is a series of articles that describe some well known and well used statistical techniques that will help the soccer punter make more informed bets. Each of the techniques has its own advantages and disadvantages and using them in isolation will improve your chances of winning. However, together they will prove invaluable in your battle with the bookies. In each article we will describe in detail how a particular method works giving you enough information for you to go ahead and create your own forecasts. We will also give you information as to where you can already find websites that use this technique in comprising their weekly forecasts.

The statistical methods described in this set of articles will help you to arrive at a better decision about the match, or matches, that you are betting on.

In this article we will be describing the well known Rateform method. The Rateform method has its origins in The Rating Of Chessplayers by Professor Elo, and from the Punters Revenge by Tony Drapkin and Richard Forsyth. The basis of the Rateform method is that each of the two teams taking part in a match is given a point score that is based on their current form. Although this sounds very simplistic, and it is, its calculation is a little more involved.

Here are the basic rules?

1. Each team is given a point score representing their current form.

2. At the start of the season each team is given 1000 points.

3. When a match is played both teams contribute some of their points towards a kitty.

4. The home team supply more points into the kitty than the away team. This is done to reflect the home teams advantage of playing at home.

5. The winning team takes the kitty, unless the result is a draw in which case both sides share the points. In the case of a draw the away side gains points and the home side looses points.

Here is how a typical calculation is made?

home team points total = HTPOINTS
away team points total = ATPOINTS
home team contribution to kitty = HTKITTY = 7% of HTPOINTS
away team contribution to kitty = ATKITTY = 5% of ATPOINTS
the kitty therefore = KITTY = HTKITTY + ATKITTY

if the result is a HOME WIN then
home team receives KITTY points added to HTPOINTS
away team receives zero points added to ATPOINTS and looses its 5% contribution to the kitty

if result is an AWAY WIN then
home team receives zero points added to HTPOINTS and looses its 7% contribution to the kitty
away team receives KITTY points added to ATPOINTS

if the result is a DRAW then
home team receives KITTY / 2 points added to HTPOINTS
away team receives KITTY / 2 points added to ATPOINTS

Let?s look at a simple example of how you could apply this?

To calculate the possible outcome of a match based on rateform the away rateform is subtracted from the home rateform and the difference is compared against set values for home, away and draw possibilities.

For example we could make our set values as follows:

AWAY WIN ß -250 DRAW 150 à HOME WIN

RATEFORM DIFFERENCE = HOME TEAM RATEFORM ? AWAY TEAM RATEFORM

So, if the RATEFORM DIFFERENCE is less than -250 then the match is likely to be an away win, if the RATEFORM DIFFERENCE is greater than 150 then the match is likely to be a home win, and if the RATEFORM DIFFERENCE lies between then the outcome is most likely to be a draw.

Now it?s your turn?

Of course you may choose to use different values to those shown above and by experimenting you may come up with better values to use. You could also decide not to reset each teams points to 1000 at the start of the season but instead let them carry over into the next season. Another alternative would be to have a rolling calculation where you calculate the rateform for each team on say the last six months.

If you have the necessary skills you could go away and build your own spreadsheet of data or even write a piece of software to take in results and fixtures and apply the Rateform method to your data. Or, if you?re lazy like me, you could grab some free software that already does this for you. If this last option is for you then visit 1X2Monster where you can download a FREE copy of the Footyforecast 2.0 software which utilises all of the statistical methods described in this series of articles. You will also be able to download FREE weekly database updates for your software, how cool is that?

Here is a list of all the articles in this series?

How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Rateform Method.
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Footyforecast Method.
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Win Draw Loss Method.
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Simple Sequence Method.
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Score Prediction Method.
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Superiority Method.

Malcolm Nossiter is the owner of 1x2monster.com and footyforecast.com. He has been providing hundreds of 1X2 tips every week since 1999. Please visit 1x2monster.com for a fountain of information on soccer betting.

How To Choose a Soccer Boot

There are some major considerations that should effect your decisions to buy soccer footwear. Your boot choice will primarily rely on these questions: what kind of surface do you play on and how much touch does your game play with? The answers to these questions will help you determine the right boot for you. It is also important to remember that maximum performance will come from a boot that is the most comfortable on your feet.

Molded or firm ground - These are built for most firm natural surfaces and they use molded studs to provide traction on most pitches and are by far the most popular and versatile outsole for natural surfaces. Molded boots feature both conical and bladed studs.

Replaceable or soft ground - For soft or wet natural surfaces. Soft ground or replaceable have used fewer well-spaced, longer replaceable studs, however many now have bladed studs that are not actually removable. If used on pitches that are too hard, they can create stud pressure pain and lead to injury.

Turf or Hard Ground - Created for artificial or hard natural surfaces like artificial turf or solid, sun-baked ground. They also provide a good option on frozen fields and make a great backup pair for most players.

Indoor - As the name suggests, it's for indoor or dry artificial surfaces. Often referred to as flats, indoor boots generally have a non-marking rubber sole.

To learn more about playing football please visit http://soccerboots.blogspot.com. You can find more about football training and playing tips.

Soccer Rules-Fouls- Jumping

On a soccer field, most acts are fouls only by degree, becoming fouls only if done in an unfair manner. Players often bump into each other while running, or push past each while each is trying to avoid a collision. They may tussle over the ball, or leap to head a long pass and collide another player who is trying to do the same thing. They may kick at the ball and narrowly miss kicking their opponent?s shin. All of these actions are just part of the game, and most bodily contact is quite incidental to the players? attempts to win the ball.

Inevitably, though, players will mistime kicks, misjudge jumps, or overestimate the body?s ability to do what the brain encouraging it to do. It is up to the referee to decide when those actions will exceed the bounds of fair play.

Jumping
Players jumping to play the ball are often among the most exciting parts of a soccer game. Players jumping at their opponents, though, are committing in foul play and can cause serious injuries. As with most other fouls, jumping during the course of play is not a foul by itself. It only becomes a foul if done carelessly, recklessly, or with excessive force.

The referee has three main ways of judging players going airborne: watching their eyes, their arms, and their angle of flight. These clues can signal whether a jumping player is exercising due care in executing a leap, or whether one or both of them is being careless. Unfortunately, players aren?t always as careful as they should be...and when two players are both trying to make up in enthusiasm what they lack in positioning, the resulting collision can end up badly for one or both of them.

Like many other actions on the soccer field, jumping is a neutral act by itself. If done carelessly, it will be a foul. And if done in a manner calculated to injure another player, it will result in a caution and yellow card---or, in an extreme case, in a red card and send-off.

Jeffrey Caminsky, a veteran public prosecutor in Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. Both his science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the first volume in the Guardians of Peace (tm) science fiction adventure series, and The Referee?s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating, are published by New Alexandria Press, http://www.newalexandriapress.com.