Youth Soccer Drills Article

Common Soccer Air Tricks

A new sport known as Freestyle Soccer is a new trend among athletes that showcase their individual skills with the soccer ball, making it do whatever they want. Freestylers execute complex sequences or combos of juggling tricks, stalls, sitdown and ground moves. It is no less hard than the game of soccer itself. More than scoring goals, it is a combination of lower body or upper body movements. Whether on the field or off, it is awesome to see a freestyler do his soccer tricks.

There are two known kinds of soccer tricks and these are air tricks and stall tricks. We will focus on air tricks. Air tricks involve someone hitting the ball with one part of their body and sending it flying into the air, hence the name, air tricks. It includes some of the easier tricks and more complex, hard tricks. It may sound easy but it takes a lot of practice and patience to perfect a single combination of tricks. Natural talent helps a lot and, when executed smoothly, even a simple air trick can be spectacular.

In air tricks, any part of the body can be used, the hand, the foot, the neck, or any other part of the body that would make for a trick, simple or flashy. The simplest air trick is the juggle. The soccer ball is hit up into the air by each foot, one after the other, about knee-high, and then is hit with the other foot the same way. This action is repeated for as long as the athlete wants. He can vary it with doing one juggle on the left foot, then two consecutive juggles on the right, then three on the left, and so on, all the while keeping the ball in the air. Many variations of the trick has been created, like the backheel, insole and outsole juggles. They have the same principle as the juggling air trick but use another part of the foot to hit the ball with.

Another air trick is the pancake which other variations have also been derived. This trick is similar to juggling but only one kick is involved. The soccer ball is first hit into the air, preferably head-high. The foot is then positioned on the ground, heel touching it while the toes are extended upwards. The soccer ball falls on the foot and is knocked back up in the air after it causes the toe to hit the ground. This is done over and over again.

These are just some of the most common air tricks. As you can see, there is a lot of skill, practice and familiarity with the soccer ball itself needed to perform soccer air tricks. Freestyle soccer air tricks can be some of the creative ways to use a sports ball and one wonders how the sport will evolve in the future.