In soccer, the free kick is the game changer. It helps to beat the competition in a challenging situation and improve your team’s performance. However, delivering a successful free kick in soccer requires a highly skilled personality like Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi.
Some people talk about David Beckham, who shoots the ball through small, hanging car tires on the goalpost to improve his free-kick skills.
- 1. Analyze the Field and prepare your mindset
- 2. Choose a fixed area of the Field when practicing.
- 3. Practice from the different corners and Areas of the pitch
- 4. Target the other Areas of the goalpost
- 5. Focus on your Placement and Power
- 6. Improve your speed to Deliver quick Free kick
- 7. Practice different techniques of the free kick.
- 8. Increase the difficulty level as per your performance
- 9. Practice again and again
- Video Tutorial to increase your Free Kicks Skills.
Great footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, and Lionel Messi are all free-kickers.
So, all the players nowadays want to improve their free-kick skills. After analyzing thousands of games, we published this article to help you improve your skills and stand out from other players.
But before diving deep into the article, first, look at the skills you need to be the great free-kickers of all time point by point.
- Analyze the Field and prepare your mindset.
- Choose a fixed area of the Field when practicing.
- Focus on your Placement and power.
- Improve your speed to deliver quick free kicks.
- Practice from the different corners and areas of the pitch.
- Target the other areas of the goalpost.
- Target over the wall and around the border.
- Practice different techniques of free kicks.
- Increase the difficulty level as per your performance.
- Practice again and again.
Let’s go deep through one by one point, and at the end, we wrote some extra techniques, so stick with us and continue reading.
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1. Analyze the Field and prepare your mindset
Mindset is always king in every situation. During the game, all players are under pressure. Good players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Neymar have missed their free kicks because of strain on the Soccer field.
Maintaining the pressure and an always-focused mindset makes you the winner in every situation. Take a long breath, analyze the Field and every player’s position, and believe that your skills are the medicine while you are selected for the kick.
Don’t second-guess yourself if you miss the shot; remember that failure makes great, successful people like Elon Musk and many others great.
2. Choose a fixed area of the Field when practicing.
At the very beginning of your free shoots, practice choosing a fixed area to reduce the time of your efforts of becoming a great shooter, selecting the specified position, and becoming a master from that position at the start.
Don’t worry about what will happen if you can’t get that type of opportunity during the game. Always keep in mind that if you master one fixed position, you will always have more opportunities to explore yourself.
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It’s helpful to practice your skills starting from 30 to 40 yards out of the goalpost or the middle of the soccer field.
Another good place to practice at the beginning is the corner of the goalpost’s D area. D area means a big half circle covering the goal post that looks like the D of the alphabet, which is also shown in the below image.
3. Practice from the different corners and Areas of the pitch
Once you become perfect from one specific part of the field, it’s your turn to practice from the other angle of the Pitch. Now you may target from the corners of the field, D area, far behind the goal area, and many other places are still there to practice.
Practicing your free kicks from different areas of the field means boosting your overall performance and confidence level.
Always remember that after becoming the master of one particular area, don’t be overconfident and start practicing anywhere. Select one place at a time and become perfect, then jump to another site.
4. Target the other Areas of the goalpost
Once you achieve perfection from different pitch angles, update and practice to target the other areas of the goalpost. As we all know, the goalpost has 4 corners, is 7.3 meters wide, and the height is 2.44 meters.
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Goalkeepers always stand in the middle of the goalpost. So, you can practice different areas of goal post like the right side, left side, up and down. Some very popular and successful free-kick placements are described below.
Target Over the Upper Corner
Most of the time, Messi prefers to target over the wall to deliver his free kicks. Targeting over the walls means shooting the ball on the upper corner of the goalpost. Targeting the upper confuses the goalkeeper and increases your chances of securing the goal.
After that, target the different sides of the corner, sometimes right and sometimes left. Hitting the ball in various corners perplexed the goalkeeper.
Target around the wall
Another good option for practicing free kicks is targeting around the wall. Target around the left and right wall, and repeat again and again until you achieve perfection.
5. Focus on your Placement and Power
To deliver successful free kicks, you must know about the proper Placement and in time. For those who are unaware, Placement means the place where you want to shoot during the game.
It would be best to secure the goal if you chose the right place to shoot the ball by analyzing the goalkeeper and his mindset. You must understand the goalkeeper’s position and the goal-securing opportunities in every free-kick and shot.
Most of the time, Neymar shoots tricky free kicks, which indicates you also need to have some tips and tricks to confuse the goalkeeper.
6. Improve your speed to Deliver quick Free kick
Speed matters the most while playing soccer. According to a recent FIFA report, Kylin Mbappe ran at 38 km/h speed, cementing his status as one of the greatest players.
Always focus on improving your speed on the pitch and be more careful while talking free kicks. Speeds confused the goalkeeper and other players as well.
7. Practice different techniques of the free kick.
Using different techniques in practice boosts your overall performance. There are so many techniques to deliver free kicks. Some of the best techniques are mentioned below in the article.
- Direct kick: As the name direct kick same, you shoot direct on the goalpost. Always remember that speed matters the most in this technique.
- Indirect Kicks: In this type of shoot, you need to give a pass to your teammates, and your teammates charge for the goal, or he may give you the return pass.
- Bending Kicks: Bending kicks is one of soccer’s most common free kicks. In this technique, players bend the ball toward the wall, and still, the ball is in their control.
- Closer up and down: This technique is for you when you are close to the goalkeeper. Bending the ball quickly, either up or down, so the goalkeeper can’t get the ball.
8. Increase the difficulty level as per your performance
After sometime later in your practice, you definitely feel that your skills have increased to a significant level. And now, you may practice by increasing your difficulty level.
Decrease the goal size, put small obstacles towards your goalpost, and some defenders, if possible, can increase the difficulty level while practicing.
9. Practice again and again
After completing all the steps of practice. Repeat again and again and again until you don’t get confident. Increase your difficulty level and practice again; analyze your every shoot and practice again.
While talking about other shoots, remember your mistake in previous shoots. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes in practice but don’t lose hope. The mistake is the key to perfection, so practice more.
Video Tutorial to increase your Free Kicks Skills.
This video explains everything about free kicks in simple, 5 easy steps to increase your performance.
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Hello, have a good day!
My name is Prabin Singh Thakuri. I’ve regularly played, watched, read about, and enjoyed soccer. I enjoy learning more about the game I love and sharing it with you all.