How to Dribble a Soccer Ball

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Guillermo Gomez and I coach youth soccer. Today I'll be talking to you about how to dribble a soccer ball. Well first let me emphasize that in soccer you are in the game to dribble for different reasons. You can dribble to maintain position of the ball. You can dribble for speed or you can dribble to beat a defender. Here for our purposes today we are going to start with just the basic dribble and we want to concern our body mechanics. You actually want to get your arms right side to you, bend your knees a little bit, get relaxed, just the way you would normally run without a soccer ball. You have your soccer ball. You actually want to strike the ball with the front of your foot and push it in front of you, right, while you are jogging and you can incorporate the other foot as well so you can pass the ball side to side or you can also use the inside of your foot, that's a different kind of dribble. Now note that my body as I'm dribbling the ball at a slow pace it will be sort of straight. If I want to accelerate and dribble faster I will actually push the ball farther away from me and this will give me more room to run and I will actually bend my body forward to get that extra power. As we dribble again we want to use the running motion, it will cause wind resistance and give you balance. You want to concentrate as you are running straight with the ball and perhaps stopping the ball with all parts of your foot, you can do it with the sole of your foot, you can do it with the side of your foot. You want to turn in every direction. You want to do circles. That will make you more comfortable with the ball and then just go out there and have fun and do what is comfortable for you. That's how you would dribble a soccer ball."