How To Improve Footwork Soccer Skills

Anyone can improve footwork soccer skills by performing easy and simple footwork soccer drills.

Here's an example of a soccer drill to improve footwork soccer skills:

ZigZag Drill (speedwork)

Set up a series of five to seven cones, flags, or other objects as markers in a zigzag and mark the beginning and end of the course with two pylons at each end.

Step1: There should be five yards between the beginning of the course and the first zigzag marker, between each of the zigzag markers, and between the final zigzag marker and the end of the course.
Step2: Have two players run the course together.
Step3: When they start, they sprint to the each marker and they must touch beside the marker with their near foot (the left foot for P1 and the right foot for P2).
You can see a diagram of this drill here:
http://soccerdrillstips.com/footworksoccerdrills.html

You can change the angle of the turn the players make by widening out the markers, so you can have them practice turning at more acute angles.

The ability of a player to change directions quickly is fundamental to the game of soccer and this will help them learn to adjust their stride to compensate for foot placement and turning. In this drill, they need to see every marker as a ball.

Yours in soccer,

Andre Botelho

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Andre Botelho is a recognized authority on the subject of footwork soccer and coaching. His web site, www.soccerdrillstips.com provides a wealth of informative articles and resources on how to improve soccer skills and make training more fun and interesting.#BREAK#

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.

Soccer Training Equipment - The Basics

You cannot imagine a soccer training session without proper soccer training equipment. There are certain equipments that a coach must have and there are certain other equipments that each and every player should have. Let?s go exploring.

Equipments For Coach

Well, there is not a very long list of equipments for the coaches, but whatever it is, the coach must have the following ready at the time of the training session.

? Perhaps, the most important equipment for a coach is a whistle. A whistle is essential for a coach because it works as an effective mean to get attention from the players. The coach can also use the same to start or stop a particular activity.

? If the coach has designed some timing activities in the training session, he must have a stopwatch with him.

? Lots of soccer drills and games require the coach to use cones. Therefore, he must have proper number of small cones. Cones are basically used to mark a specific area in the field.

? The duties and responsibilities of the coach are vast. He also needs to look after the players. Since soccer involves lots of physical activities and therefore, the coach must have a first-aid kit to cure the minor injuries.

? Last, but not the least, the coach must not risk running a training session on his own alone. It is very difficult to manage everything alone and no matter how efficient a coach you are, in order to get effective and productive results from the training session, it is important that you take the help of assistants.

Equipments For Players

? The players must come in their uniform.

? If it is outdoor soccer training, they should wear Rubber soccer cleats. On the other hand, if it is indoor soccer training, tennis shoes will do.

? Each and every player must come with their own ball. Again, the size of the ball must be in proportion to the specfic age of the players. Here, I must add that the coach should also have some spare balls because most often than not some of the players forget to come with their own balls.

The goalkeeper however requires some specialized soccer training equipment, such as brightly colored uniform so that he could easily be recognized, gloves to protect the hands and Elbow and hip pads because they have to dive several times on the ground.

Andre Botelho is a recognized authority on the subject of soccer training equipment. His web site, Youth Soccer Drills, provides a wealth of informative soccer articles, resources and tips for soccer coaches, parents and players.