How to Juggle a Soccer Ball

Soccer is a sport that involves many skills. While learning all of them may not be necessary, some can help you drastically improve your game. One such skill is to Juggle a Soccer Ball.

Many people think that juggling is merely a useless skill, and learning how to juggle a soccer ball with your feet has no real benefit. However, this is not entirely true. 

Juggling has numerous benefits, including better ball control, better balance, and enhanced foot first touch. As juggling helps you improve all these skills, your confidence is also increased. However, to be a good juggler, you need to practice and follow some rules, which we will be discussing today. 

Juggling a Soccer Ball

Some of the steps you must follow to learn how to juggle a soccer ball with your feet and other parts of the body as a beginner are specified below. 

How to juggle a soccer ball for beginners:

1. Hold and raise the ball to your chest, then drop it on the ground to start

While practicing juggling, make sure to first grab the soccer ball using both hands, and raise it to your chest level. After this, drop the soccer ball on the ground and let it bounce only once.

When the ball is about to hit the ground the second time, make sure to kick the ball upwards without using too much force. The key point here is to kick the ball using your dominant foot, as this would help you kick the ball upwards in a more controlled way. 

Do this until you are good enough to kick the ball upwards at your chest height. After this, again follow the above-specified steps, but this time make sure that you drop the ball directly on your foot and kick it upwards. 

It might be hard at first, so if you think you are losing control, make sure to kick the ball once and catch it. If you are able to juggle the ball once without any inconvenience, repeat the steps and do two juggles, and so on. 

2. Try to use both feet (Alternating foot technique)

Juggling with your dominant foot is more convenient and helps you do more juggles. However, juggling the ball with both your feet looks natural and showcases how professional you are in the game.

Moreover, juggling with your non-dominant foot makes it stronger as well. To improve and learn how to juggle a soccer ball with your feet, hold the soccer ball up, drop it, and let it bounce once.

Kick the ball with your dominant foot upwards. But this time, make sure to kick the ball with such a force that it only reaches your waist height. Once it reaches your waist, catch the ball. 

Repeat this step, but this time kick the ball using your non-dominant foot. If you succeed in juggling with both feet without losing control or kicking the ball too high, drop the ball again. However, this time catch the ball after you have juggled it once with both your feet.

3. Be careful about which part of your foot you should use to juggle the ball

You cannot juggle a soccer ball with your toes, as this would not provide enough stability and ball control. To kick the ball in a way that it goes in an upward direction, make sure to kick it using the front part of your feet, laces, in particular. 

Kicking with laces provides improved steadiness and ball control. However, make sure that your laces are not tied in bulging knots, as this would send the ball flying away from you.

In addition, make sure that your knees are not in a locked position and are a bit bent, as doing this provides balance and helps you move quickly. Also, make sure to always keep your eyes on the ball, as eye and foot coordination is one of the most crucial aspects of juggling. 

4. Put the ball on the ground and roll it using your feet

Once you are comfortable with the holding and dropping the juggling technique, it is time to take your juggling game to a next level. Put the ball on the ground, and roll the ball towards you by placing your dominant foot on the top. Kick the ball upwards in a controlled manner once the ball is at your foot. 

Once the ball is in the air, try to juggle a soccer ball using your feet. If you lose control or the ball hits the ground, put the ball on the ground and repeat the steps. 

5. Sometimes using the inside part of your feet might not be a bad idea

Sometimes during juggling, the soccer ball would get too close to your body. And when this happens, using your laces to juggle would not be ideal as it does not provide enough control. 

Hence, when the ball gets too close to your body, use the inside part of your feet. You can use the front part of your thighs as well. 

6. Use a slightly deflated ball

Juggling is a tricky skill that involves numerous tricks. One trick to be a better juggler is to use a slightly deflated ball. Using a ball with too much air would go higher upon kicking, and as a result, you will lose control. 

7. Don’t kick your feet up too high

When juggling, one of the primary things that you should learn is how up you should kick your feet to juggle the ball with full control. Many novice jugglers kick their legs up to their waist or at their knee level.

All these movements reduce ball control. And it is one of the reasons many soccer players tend to take more time to learn juggling. 

You should only kick your feet up a few inches above the ground and not more than that. However, you must know that this is a hard trick to master, and you would move around a lot to kick the ball before you get comfortable kicking your feet slightly above the ground. 

Conclusion

Juggling a soccer ball is a fun and challenging way to improve your soccer skills. At Barcelona Premier Soccer Club, we believe that mastering the art of juggling takes practice, patience, and persistence.

By following the simple steps outlined in this article, players can learn to juggle a soccer ball with ease and develop their ball control, coordination, and concentration. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced player, juggling is a valuable technique to add to your soccer repertoire.

So why not give it a try and see how many times you can juggle a soccer ball? At Barcelona Premier Soccer Club, we’re committed to helping players of all skill levels reach their full potential and enjoy the beautiful game of soccer.