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

How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Score Prediction 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 Score Prediction method. The Score Prediction method uses a teams goal performances over a specified period of time in order to predict the score of the game concerned.

Here are the basic rules?
As an example of the Score Prediction method this is how Footyforecast and 1X2Monster handle this method. This is an example of a match and each teams respective goal count for the last five games:

home team 3-3 1-0 4-1 0-2 2-1
away team 0-1 2-2 0-3 6-0 1-3

We can work out some figures from this as follows:

home teams goals scored for = HGF = 3 + 1 + 4 + 0 + 2 = 10
away teams goals scored for = AGF = 1 + 2 + 3 + 0 + 3 = 9
home teams goals against = HGA = 3 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 7
away teams goals against = AGA = 0 + 2 + 0 + 6 + 1 = 9

Now we can work out points for each team based on the goals they have scored and the goals they have had scored against them as follows:

home goal points = HGP = HGF + AGA = 10 + 9 = 19
away goals points = AGP = HGA + AGF = 7 + 9 = 16

And now we can get a difference:
goal points difference = GPD = HGP - AGP = 19 - 16 = 3

Now we could classify this as follows:
GPD => +2 then home win,
GPD =< -2 then away win
GPD -2 then draw.

These parameters are obviously fairly arbitrary but experience should allow you to tune them more carefully.

Now we must use the GPD and one of three tables.
Here are the tables...

Home WIn Score Prediction
HOME AWAY
HGSP GOALS AGSP >0 >11 >17 >26
>49.....6............0....1....2....3
>43.....5............0....1....2....3
>37.....4............0....1....2....3
>30.....3............0....1....2
>23.....2............0....1
>0.......1............0

Away WIn Score Prediction
AWAY HOME
AGSP GOALS HGSP >23 >18 >13 >0
>34.....5............3....2....1....0
>29.....4............3....2....1....0
>24.....3..................2....1....0
>18.....2..................2....1....0
>0.......1..................2....1....0

Draw Score Prediction
HOME + AWAY SCORE
....>44.........3-3
....>34.........2-2
....>24.........1-1
....>0...........0-0

Since our match has generated a home win prediction then we must use the HOME WIN SCORE PREDICTION table to obtain our score prediction. To do this we need to calculate another parameter, that of home goal score points as follows:

HGSP = HGP + all goals scored by home team of 3 or more in a match + all goals against the away side of 3 or more.

therefore HGSP = 19 + 7 + 6 = 32

Now do the same for the away team:

AGSP = AGP + all goals scored by away team of 3 or more in a match + all goals against the home side of 3 or more.

therefore AGSP = 16 + 6 + 3 = 25

So, in the home win score prediction table we go to HOME > 30 which gives us 3 goals for the home team and go to AWAY > 17 giving us two goals for the away team therefore the result is predicted as a 3-2 home win.

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.

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 Score Prediction 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.

Soccer Cleats - To Stud Or Not To Stud

Soccer boots, only correctly called cleats when they have the ground gripping teeth on the bottom of the shoe, have always been fodder for debate, among those who believe the screw in stud to be better than the molded teeth for traction or reliability. Many of the modern changes to soccer boots has come more from concerned parents, demanding the safest footwear for their young players, than it has from professional players, as might be believed.

There are basically three different types of soccer boots available, those being molded cleats, screw in studs, and these called 'astros' which are designed especially for use on astro turf. A good molded cleat is probably the best beginner boot, if play is to be on grass. They are easy to care for, and hitting them against each other or a wall will knock off most muddy, grassy build-up. Other than that, a rinse with warm water, and allowing them to thoroughly dry before wearing again will provide for about all the care these durable cleats will need.

If finances allow, it is wise to have two pairs of these soccer cleats for your young player, to insure one is thoroughly dry before re-wearing it. In the case of tournaments, where 3 or more games are played in a singe weekend, it is a great relief for those hard working feet to have fresh boots to put on. It is wise to note here that soccer slides, or sandals, are a very important item in the soccer bag. If the cleats are worn on hard surfaces for any length, the cleats will wear or break off much quicker than normal field use would cause.

When your player is ready to try screw in studs make certain they are fully prepared for the additional maintenance these boots will typically require. The simple cleaning of them is much the same as other molded boots, however, the screw in studs, or cleats, is where the care of these soccer boots makes a real difference in the performance they will afford the player.

The studs are available in plastic or metal, and it may be wise to determine which is allowed on your field, particularly if it is for youth play, prior to making your choice. It is possible that the sanctioning body at your playing fields may not allow screw in studs at all.

After you have made the decision to purchase soccer cleats with screw in studs, and have determined that the playing fields in your area do allow them, go to a sporting goods store that knows soccer, and has sales associates who will take the time to ensure your player gets a good, snug fit. This would be true even in the molded cleats, of course. Make certain the studs are screwed in tightly, and always carry extra studs in the soccer bag.

Inspecting the studs as the cleats are cleaned and put away after a match will prove wise, and help prevent a lost stud during a game. Never continue to play with a missing stud, it is harmful to the overall stability of the player, and can easily distort the hole so a new stud may not fit properly when replacing it is finally attempted. At first break in the game, replace the missing stud.

Astros are easy to care for, and can be used on grassy or hard surfaces. Basic cleaning is similar to the molded cleats.

Get all the latest in Soccer know how from the one and only true source at http://www.SoccerDetails.com. Be sure to check our soccer cleats page.