.png)
Technical Ability is the term used to describe how good a footballer is with the ball. A great technical player has excellent control over the ball, excellent delivery with both feet, and an impeccable first touch.
Players like Iniesta, Xavi, Modric, Messi, and world class players like these remind us that to play at the highest level, you must have a very strong connection and close bond with the ball.
You would watch these players play on the weekends, and they make everything seem so simple. Every touch of the ball, every pass and shot; they make the game look so much slower than what it actually is.
But the main reason why they're at the highest level is because of their ability to use their technical ability to help their teams succeed against tough opposition.
Their teams rely on their players to use the technique that they have developed through rigorous years of training and experience to bring home a victory at the end of 90 minutes.
Maybe you're on the bench of your current team because your coach doesn't think you're at the level to be a consistent starter. Maybe he's constantly yelling at you at practice for messing up a touch or pass, and he's constantly having to tell you to work on your technique.
But how exactly do you work on technique and improve at it?
In this blog post, you will learn about the best methods to train your technical ability in football, and how to improve areas of your game.
How to Train Your Technique
Just like any skill, in order to improve your technical ability, you must spend countless hours practicing it until it becomes natural.
Think back to when you first started out playing football, back to the days where you couldn't even make a proper ground pass.
I remember back when I was first starting out in football, I was A LOT worse than the other players around me. They were all technically better than me, and were able to do things I wasn't able to do yet— for example, play an accurate ground pass.
My coach was tired of me not being able to play a proper pass, so one day at training, he took me aside and brought me to my dad, who was watching over me as I was training with the other kids.
The coach told my dad that I needed more practice with my passing, and that the other players were very ahead of me and that he can't halt their progress for the sake of mine (brutal but it was the truth).
So after that training session, my dad would bring me to the elementary school park and we would spend hours working on being able to make a proper pass with the right technique, and then repeat that technique time after time again, until It became so normal that I couldn't get it wrong.
The next time I went to practice with the team— After skipping for like three weeks to solely focus on my passing— my passing ability was on par or even above that of my teammates.
Because of that individual training where I spent countless hours practicing one technique and constantly repeating it until it became second nature, my technical ability improved, and I finally realized the importance of individual practice.
This rule of repetition applies to all aspects of your technical ability, whether it's mastering a ground pass, or mastering being able to consistently take a quality first touch, drive into a space, and find the top corner.
The 'secret' to improving your technical ability, is countless hours of repetition until you eventually master the technique.
However, it's not just about repeatedly kicking a ball at a wall and hoping that after three hours of kicking the ball at the wall you'll magically shoot and pass like Messi.
Behind every repetition, there should be a reflection or thought that follows along with it.
Whenever I would mess up the technique for the ground pass when training with my dad, he would always point out what I did wrong, and we would try and fix that mistake in the next rep.
Every mistake I made wasn't just brushed off, it was thoroughly analyzed and fixed so that I could learn what I did wrong and avoid making the same mistake in the next rep.
If you want to improve your driven ball technique, then get out there and go and practice hitting the ball with the right technique, and carefully analyze every kick.
Did the ball go where you wanted it to go? Did it feel right when you hit it? Why didn't it go where you wanted it to go? Was it the way you hit it? Did you hit it with the wrong part of the foot or the wrong part of the ball?
Ask yourself questions as you think about your mistakes, and then fix those mistakes in the next rep until you get the right technique. Then keep practicing that correct technique until it feels normal.
How to Structure a Technical Training Program
Okay so now you know that the 'secret' behind mastering your technical ability is constant repetition of the correct technique, and the constant fixing of mistakes.
But how exactly can you put this into practice today?
Is there some sort of training plan that you could follow to make sure that you're improving?
The good news is that training your technical ability is as simple as reading a book.
In order to finish a book, you first must start it by simply opening it and reading the first page, then, you progressively make your way deeper into the book throughout the course of anywhere from a few days to months.
Your technical ability is very similar. You simply start, and progress overtime!
Let me give you another example to help make it a little more easy to understand.
In order to get better at my ground passing, I started by simply practicing the technique over and over again and fixing my mistakes over the course of a few weeks until I was able to perform the technique almost perfectly every single time.
Once I mastered this technique, now it's time to up the difficulty. To do that, I can now use that technique in different scenarios, which will require more precision and focus. For example, the next thing I might work on is being able to redirect the pass in another direction.
Once I get really good at that variation by consistently working on it over the course of a few weeks, then I might make it even more difficult by adding some sort of reactionary component that influences what direction I pass the ball in. This added cognitive component will further increase the amount of focus on performing the right technique, which will further improve my ability to play a ground pass.
You continuously train that technique by making drills harder and more advanced by adding different variations, match-specific scenarios, and cognitive components and staying consistent with them over time, just like reading a book page by page every day!
To improve technique, first you must MASTER the fundamental skill. Such as being able to correctly hit a driven ball, or curl a shot, or ping a long ball.
Once you master the technique, you increase the difficulty by adding handicaps, like having to take a touch and then making that pass or shot, or having to dribble through a few cones to then setting yourself up for a shot.
Then, when you get good at those type of drills, then you're going to want to further challenge yourself by having to incorporate more game realistic scenarios, like reacting to cue and then making that pass or shot.
To Improve a Certain Area of Your Technical Ability:
1) Master the Technique 2) Add Handicaps / More Difficult Variations 3) Add Game Specific Scenarios / Reaction
A simply way to program this is by spending a set amount of time working on a certain technique, for example, working on your curled shot technique for 2 weeks. Then progress into a more difficult variation and practice that for another set amount of time, for example doing a cone weave to a 1v1 at a cone to then finishing with that curled technique, and practicing that drill for 3-4 weeks. Then continually progress by combining different techniques into one drill and adding a more game realistic component, for example, receiving a long ball out wide, driving at a defender, cutting inside with skills, and finishing with a curled shot.
Compound/Functional Drills to Improve Total Technical Ability
Many times on Instagram, I see these huge and complicated drills that combine many different skills and techniques, and although those drills are excellent for improving overall technical ability, too many players get the wrong idea and are frustrated as to why they can't perform the drill correctly when they try it for themselves.
For example, here's this excellent drill from @7mlctraining on Instagram:
As seen in the post, @7mlctraining performs a variety of obstacles as he makes his way towards the final shot on net.
He starts off by taking a good first touch into space, playing a pass back into the wall, and then receiving the ball again, this time taking his first touch into his stride, and then performing a series of 1v1 and dribbling obstacles until he makes his way towards the box where he once again takes a first touch into his stride and finishes with a solid shot into the side-netting.
Although this drill is excellent for footballers, it should be used as a progression for your normal technical training.
@7mlctraining has outstanding technical ability on the ball. He has mastered the fundamentals such as his first touch, his 1v1 ability, his close control dribbling, and his finishing. This drill that he performs is a combination of all these skills and techniques he has mastered in order to further challenge himself and his technique in a more game realistic scenario.
However, before this large and complicated drill, @7mlctraining broke down this exercise, isolated the different fundamentals of this drill, mastered them by constant repetition, and once he progressed to the point of mastery, he combines the different techniques he's worked on in isolation in a more functional, game-realistic drill.
For a player like yourself, you can definitely do drills like the one above, but first, focus on breaking that large drill down into its parts, and mastering the smaller parts of it first. That way when you do these large functional drills, you can further challenge your technical ability and continuously improve in your position.
For the drill above, you can isolate a few different aspects of your technical ability and work on those techniques individually:
First Touch
1v1 Skills
Close Control Dribbling At Speed
Finishing
You can plan your sessions to work on these different areas individually, like working on the technique of taking a successful first touch into your stride, beating an opponent with a stepover or body feint, taking a touch of the ball with every step as you dribble, and the technique for a driven shot.
By consistently working on these different areas individually overtime and improving the technique required for each, you can later combine these individual parts into a large drill like the one above.
Takeaway
In order to become a better player on the pitch, you must master the ball and the different techniques that your position demands.
Working on these different techniques in training will help you become a more technical player and have better mastery over the ball.
In order to improve a technique, you must constantly repeat rep after rep of the correct form of this technique, analyze your mistakes, fix those mistakes, and progress in difficulty over time.
Over time and with consistent practice, you will improve at this technique, and can combine other techniques you've mastered into larger, more functional drills.
These drills will challenge your technical ability to a new level, and will allow you to practice different skills that will benefit you in your position on the pitch.
I hope this blog post has helped you better understand how to plan your individual sessions, and how you can maximize your development!
Alex from GoGrind Soccer Signing off...
Get Up. Go GRIND.
Comments