Shomit Mukherjee’s Soccer Blog

Youth soccer players who are denied vision training during their younger years will have a harder time playing in a competitive environment as they get older. Players of all ages are certainly more comfortable in controlling a soccer ball when they are able to look at it. One of the most difficult challenges in the game of soccer is to be able to control the ball, look up, AND identify/process WHAT you are seeing.

So how do you train this skill with very young soccer players? Simply saying “look up”, which all of us coaches do, is not quite good enough.

Players have to be able to look up and identify what they see while still being able to manipulate/control the ball at their feet. Simple obstacle course dribbling activities in which the players have to look up and identify different objects can do wonders for a youth soccer player. **(Two different colored cones can work for this. Keep one in each hand behind your back, then raise it up and have the player call out the color. If you want to get advanced, have FOUR different colors).

If cones are not available at home, simply have the young player dribble around objects in the yard at home and identify cars crossing in the distance, or colors of birds in the air.

Be creative with it, but emphasize vision…..and make it fun. You need to be able to see the game to play the game. Fun ways to improve field vision for U9 soccer players