How to Trap a Soccer Ball With a Foot

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Guillermo Gomez, I coach youth soccer. A lot of people ask me how do you trap the ball? Well, let me emphasize first the difference between trapping the ball with your foot, and receiving the ball with your foot. Trapping the ball is actually stopping a ball that's coming at you very fast, and you actually want to stop the ball right at you so that you can have possession of the ball, and not give it to the opponent. Receiving the ball is when the ball comes at you at a medium speed, okay, and you actually redirect that ball into a different spot--in a different direction away from the defender. That's actually what you want to be doing during the game of soccer, unless the ball is coming at you very fast. So today we're talking about how to trap the ball. I just wanted to emphasize the different between trapping and receiving. So let's assume a ball is coming fast at us. The first you want to do is relax the part of the body that you're receiving the ball. So if I'm receiving the ball with my feet, I want to open my hips wide, I want to put my body in the line where the ball is traveling, I open up my hips to receive that ball, I point my toes up, bend my knee, receive the ball my lifting my feet a little bit, look at the ball so I can stop it right about the middle--that's where I want to cushion it. And as the ball is coming at me, I want to receive that ball and cushion the ball, and bring my leg backwards a little bit. By doing that I'll make sure that the ball stays right on my feet, so that it doesn't bounce away from me, and the defender gets possession of that ball. So again, I want to relax my body, okay, I look at the ball, get in line on the ball, point my toes up, bend my knee, open my hips, cushion the ball a little bit backwards so that I can have possession of the ball right at my feet. And that's how you trap a soccer ball when you're playing soccer."