The Quickest Way to Improve as a Soccer Player

Ambidexterity is an essential component of an elite soccer player. The ability to use both feet to kick, dribble, or receive the ball brings a host of advantages to your game. It also speaks to your work ethic, since only 1% of people are naturally ambidextrous. Most professionals have had to learn how to use both feet through training. 

Before we go over how to improve the strength of your weak foot, let’s explain why being ambidextrous - or “two-footed” as we say in soccer - is so advantageous in the first place:

Your Movements are Harder to Predict

When you can use both feet effectively, your movements become a lot harder to predict. A defender, for example, will have a much easier time winning the ball when they can see an attacker favoring one foot over the other – simply push them to their weak foot. If the defender sees you using both feet, they have to give you a little more space or risk getting beat. 

You Can Play Faster 

At the end of the day, the speed of play is key in determining what level a player can play at. And having to take an extra second to adjust so you can use your strong foot gives the defense an extra second to get set, the keeper to get in place, and the midfielder to cut off the passing lane. 

This is why working to get your weak foot as strong as your strong foot is the quickest way to improve as a soccer player. 

How to Become Two-Footed

Becoming two-footed doesn’t require any special forms of training, but it does require consistency. You just have to some basic drills with your weak foot on a regular basis. 

Two simple drills you can do at home: first, start by juggling only with your weak foot – target getting 500 juggles per day (don’t worry about how many in a row you get, we’re going for total touches; if you’re just starting out let the ball hit the ground between juggles). Second, get 250 wall passes a day with your weak foot. These two drills should take about 30 minutes a day – then do them for 30 days, and you’ll have gotten 22,500 touches with your weak foot. You will be guaranteed to be an improved player. 

Other Ways to Improve Your Weak Foot

Go back to the drills you did when you were younger: do some inside-outsides with your weak foot (set up some cones to dribble through). 

Then you can practice shooting and finishing with your weak foot. And any time you’re doing individual training, try to do two thirds of it with your weak foot and one third with your strong foot. 

Will this be frustrating at first? Absolutely – it’ll feel like you’re going back years in your development…because for most players, their weak foot is years behind their strong foot. But putting in this extra effort will not only quickly improve you as a player, it will also improve your resiliency and your mental strength. Anyone that has the fortitude do struggle through working on their weak foot is going to be a strong player, period. 

As former pros, we learned that players that look to be naturally skilled tend to be naturally hard workers with elite mental strength – and that’s exactly what we work on with our mentees. 

Want to see if we can help you grow as a player? Try our intro package