7 Drills I Wish I Did MORE as a Kid

what's going on guys Matt here from become elite and welcome to the video so first things first I just want to say I finally got the blue check on Instagram it felt like it's been forever but I finally got it so if you guys aren't already go check me out and go follow me on instagram because you can just you know be rest assured that that's the official match Sheldon page anyway on a more serious note this video is going to be about seven drills that I wish I did more uh as a kid [Applause] [Music] if you guys don't already know I'm a professional footballer for FC Tulsa here in the second division of America but I definitely didn't have the best route to the pro game in terms of my youth career I was never on a development Academy team I never did ODP and I really kind of flew under the radar for like the first 18 to 19 years of my life a lot of my training was individual just playing 1v1 with my brother trying to learn freestyle juggling tricks and just kind of playing for fun and although I think I did really well obviously I think I really developed a ton there's a lot of stuff looking back on it that I wish I might have done a little bit differently or areas or drills or whatever that I wish I would have focused more on the first drill that I really wish I would have done more of is just Rondo's I think Rondo's is one of the best drills out there if you have a small group of people just to work on speed of play first touch passing and game realistic passing pattern you know being an American I didn't have all of my neighbors constantly playing soccer outside in futsal courts or anything it was kind of like we played basketball football baseball rode our bikes around and there wasn't that many kids I don't think any kids in my neighborhood really focused or really were serious about soccer besides me and my brother so because of that me and my brother did a lot of 1v1 s against each other a lot of dribbling drills but we didn't get that small group fast speed to play type training that a lot of other kids and other countries got to do personally for me I felt that when I made that transition from the collegiate level to the professional level I kind of struggled a little bit with that speed of play and first touch and just quick thinking that's required at the professional level so looking back on it I wish I could have told my youth coaches or just my friends or whoever I was training with do Rondo's do tight space small group stuff and pass pass pass pass the second drill that I really wish I would have focused more on as a kid going off of that passing kind of speed of play type drill is doing wall passing and wall juggling I know it's really difficult to get a really good group of like seven to ten players to be able to play Rondo's all the time but I would have gone back and told my younger self look if you don't have that group you don't have that small group in order to play Ron dozers or small space games or whatever just go to a wall go to a wall and do one in to touch passes and focus on perfectly hitting the ball every single time so it's skimming across the ground and returning perfectly back to you or just worked on doing one touch - touch juggling against the wall and work on controlling it out of the air perfectly every single time like I said I really only had my brother to train with when I was younger so we we did a lot of dribbling drills a lot of 1v1 and a lot of freestyle juggling but we didn't focus on that passing and receiving or we didn't focus on juggling and hitting the ball to each other and perfecting the first touch it was kind of just games it was kind of like oh can we do it around the world oh can we do these dribbling drills can we do the Ronaldinho drill which were great and really really helped our ball mastery it really helped our dribbling that I really didn't focus on perfecting the first touch or the past as much as I would have liked to the third drill that I wish I would have focused more on as a kid is the game of - touch - touch is just a juggling game or try to keep the ball up using two touches each and if you drop the ball or miss control the ball you lose it's a very simple game but it's a game that I play in my professional trainings almost every single day before and after training and I honestly think it's an amazing drill that really translates over to the real game I've noticed over the years of playing to touch that as I've worked to control that ball out of the air and focus on perfecting the touch and having a clean touch every single time that really helps my first touch and control of the ball in the games and it's incredibly fun and I really didn't start playing it till I was about 20 21 years old so I wish I could go back teach this game to my younger self teach this to my teammates and play it every single day before training after training or with my brother in my front yard the fourth drill that I really wish I would have focused more on as a kid is simple passing combinations and this goes for everything everything from a square pass where you're passing the ball around a square using two touches and just opening up or doing give and goes around each cone or doing other Y passes or any sort of passing combinations for the group of players just really helps perfect that first touch focusing on hitting the ball with the perfect amount of weight to your partner so that he can take the perfect touch and just really focusing so the passes aren't bobbling everything's clean and sharp I cannot convey how hugely important it is at the professional level to be able to hit the perfect pass with a perfect amount of weight so that's skimming across the ground to the partner's right foot or the his left floor or whatever the ball needs to go every single time consistently and perfect that basic fundamental skill is something that honestly I thought as a 13 14 15 year old kid that I had already mastered I was very naive and I was just in that little bubble of my team and I thought that if I had good OneTouch and to touch passing at that level that it was fine at the next level but again as I moved up to the collegiate level to the semi-professional level and now to the professional level I've noticed over the years that my passes were not nearly as consistent or as perfect as they needed to be and actually when I was first training was my first professional team that was something that they pounded and yelled at me about every single time that my passes weren't perfectly exactly where they needed to be with the perfect amount of weightt so I wish I could go back to my younger self and I wish I could tell him just do more of these simple passing drills that almost seemed too basic but try to perfect it or if you're training with a small group really really focus in on these simple movements these simple touches and really trying to make them clean and sharp and perfect every single time drill number five that I wish I would have focus more on as a kid is mid-distance lace passing now this is something that I really didn't know that I even needed until I it was almost a little bit too late for me now this is the type of pass thing where you're about 30 to 40 yards away from a partner and you're just lacing it either on the ground or like below head height so that it's really traveling in a straight line all the way over to your partner low driven and fast when I was a kid I worked on my long balls might ship long balls as far as I could kick it I worked on my instep passing you know a decent amount and I worked on like shooting either lacing it or knuckling it or doing that finesse shot but I never really worked on just passing the ball 20 or 30 yards in a straight line right to my partner every single time you know consistently and that pass is huge at the next level I mean everything from the goalkeeper hitting out a line drive out to the full-back for the center back or as a fullback hitting that ball driven down into a channel or into might strikers feet or as a centre-back hitting that into the strikers feet or out to the full-back or wherever it's just a pass that every player really needs to have in their arsenal so they can hit the ball out you know a mid distance type pass but quickly and accurately and in a straight line drive and I really didn't start focusing and working on that pass until again I was about 20 21 years old which is really late grand scheme of things and I wish I could go back to my younger self and tell him how important that passes at the professional level and how you need to master it with your right and left foot consistently 8090 percent of the time and to the credit of my younger self to the credit of my 20 21 year old self once I got into the collegiate game I was kind of moving to the semi professional game I recognized this all I recognized that I was struggling with Rondo's I recognized that my passes one and two touch passes on the ground every single time whereas a consistent as I wanted them to be I recognized that I didn't have the passing combinations that I wanted I recognized that mid distance pass was something I wasn't that good at so I worked a ton at it but I wish I would have just worked on it at an earlier age it would have benefited me more now the sixth drill that I really wish I would have focus more on is the kate is really just playing I really wish I just did more futsal games five aside for V fours just on the street playing with my friends playing with teammates small sighted games and just being as creative as possible looking at some of my professional teammates now that have played for their national teams were played at the highest level the guys that are the most comfortable on the ball the quickest on the ball that had the fastest speed of play they spent their entire childhood all the way up to their teenage years playing futsal or five aside every single day and again you know being in suburban America in the 90s and early 2000s soccer wasn't big at all and again none of my neighbors even really played so I definitely think it would be hard but I wish I could have just set myself up or got myself on some some actual organized futsal teams I wish I just would have done more small sighted games when I was younger and the final thing that I wish I would have focused more on as a kid is doing fitness with the ball once again growing up in America in the early 90s or in the early 2000s we really didn't have the academy setups that we have now we don't have the same training and the same coaches that we have now a lot of my coaches just kind of ran us we just ran without the ball thinking that fitness was just such a huge part of the game and it is don't get me wrong but I think you can do majority of the fitness with the ball playing games or even doing anything we're doing a sprint a shuttle run coming back and then doing some sort of ball work a pass or something I mean whenever you look at a professional team majority the time when they're doing running fitness there's a little bit of ball work maybe even a header a little instep pass dribbling through a little bit of cones while they're doing their fitness just to make it a little bit more game realistic than just running without the ball for 6 10 15 minutes they're doing 10 Sprint's or whatever adding the ball in is just so much more beneficial than just doing your fitness without it now I definitely think there's a time and place to do the John Terry cardio workout or to do laps around a track or to time your two-mile or just to do full field Sprint's something without the ball but I think majority of the time especially especially as a kid you should try to add in the ball whenever you can and the final note that I want to say is that this list was for me personally this is for my unique situation my upbringing and everything just things that I would wish I would have done a little bit differently I know tons of pros and I've talked to tons of pros where when I asked them what they would have done differently with their youth training they say that they did too much ball work that they said they focus so much on just passing and first touch and everything but they never focused on the nutrition side the gym side the fitness side or maybe they never focused on shooting or they never focused on whatever so it's different from Player to Player but this is my list for me as a kid that I wish I would have done maybe a little bit differently anyway I hope you guys really enjoyed the video if you did please please please hit the thumbs up button it helps out the channel so much we've been growing a ton which is awesome to see subscribe if you're not subscribed and I hope you guys really enjoy the video I'll see you guys in the next one bye guys peace [Music]

Channel: Become Elite

Views: 346,540

Keywords: soccer, football, sports, vlog, matt, sheldon, become, elite, professional, pro, footballer, athlete, workout, weight, lift, train, training, saint, louis, fc

Id: RaH7TWzsAOQ

Length: 10min 54sec (654 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2020