Freestyle Soccer Is Performing Soccer Tricks Worthwhile in a Football Match

Posted by admin on April 27th, 2008 filed in Soccer

This question raised curiosity because people are still
confused with it. Freestyler’s ability to perform various
combination of complex sequences of juggling and dribbling
(ground) techniques makes them exciting to watch whether on
the streets or through media such as internet. Nike launched
freestyle campaign in the early 21st century through
advertising and promoting competitions throughout the world
enabling people to see the likes of Ronaldinho, Edgar
Davids, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Francessco Totti, Ronaldo and
others. But can freestyle football become practical to the
“real” football game?

Freestyle Football Benefits

Juggling and dribbling techniques is the process to improve
coordination, balancing and ball control. Mastering a
complex set of juggling trick requires time, dedication and
patience to become an exciting freestyler. Freestyle
football allows individual to express their creativity on
inventing new soccer tricks either on juggling or dribbling
skills.

There are many dribbling tricks like the step-over that can
be learned and practise. Each trick has different levels of
difficulty varying from beginners to advance. Choosing and
performing the right trick during a football match can be a
crucial strategy. Applying these tricks require good timing
and execution. Execute it perfectly and you’ll gain valuable
seconds or create space for your teammates in tight
situations. But make a mistake and you’ll allow your
opposition to crawl back to their positions or you’ll lose
the ball thus allowing them to hit on a counter attack.

Top professional football players such as Zinedine Zidane,
Ronaldinho and Ronaldo may have many tricks in the bag. But
they only master or specialize one trick in a match known as
their “trademark” trick like the famous 360-roulette, flip-
flap and dummy are there to be seen.

The Downside of Freestyle Football

Freestyle footballer has tremendous technical ability
especially ball control but may lack in other attributes
that are required during a football match.

Attributes are spread into three categories:

1. Physical

Many leagues especially in Europe require football players
to meet the in-game physical demand such as stamina,
strength, balance, agility, pace, speed, acceleration and
jumping

2. Mental

Aggression, anticipation, bravery, creativity, decision
making, determination, flair, influence, off the ball,
positioning, team work and work rate

3. Technical

Ball control (technique), crossing, dribbling, finishing
(shooting), heading, long shots, long throws, marking,
passing, taking penalties, set pieces (free kicks, corner
kicks, throw-ins) and tackling

Of course when you’re involved in a football training or
match, some coaches may discourage you from doing tricks on
the pitch. Instead they focus on other factors like team
spirit, team movement and tactical battle which in my
opinion necessary to win a match.

Is All About Playing “Beautiful” Football

But who wouldn’t want to see top football players displaying
their brilliance on the pitch. The “beautiful game” is more
about football teams winning with style rather than
scrapping for victories. After all, the modern game is more
about entertaining the football fans than just winning at
all cost. Sadly, some teams still adopt this unhealthy
mindset. Never-the-less, being able to pull-off a trick and
out-manouvering your opponent is the best feeling in the
world. Finally, let’s raised the “beautiful game” to another
level.

I would leave this article with a quote to ponder on:

“Ronaldinho is technically very good, but also very strong
physically. He was against three players and I could not
stop him. After that goal everything ended for us” John
Terry

Share This