The Best Individual Youth Soccer Drills for Faster Development

Creating a training session with the best youth soccer drills is a great way to improve your player’s skills and athleticism. Individual soccer drills have a time and place for a youth player’s development, but they should not make up the majority of a player’s training.

The beautiful game is the most unpredictable team sport in the world that is played against live opponents and the best way to get better at the game is to train how you play. This means the best way to get better at soccer is to play the game a lot through team trainings, pick up games, and all other variations of the game such as small sided games (5v5, 7v7, or 9v9), futsal, beach soccer, soccer tennis, and soccer ping pong.

Individual soccer training sessions or private sessions may be added throughout the week as a way to supplement your training, but they should not replace team training and unstructured games because again these forms of training best replicate the unpredictability of the game as well as allow players to get into the flow state.

With that being said, if you truly want to get a head of the competition you will have to put in extra work, which means doing extra training sessions. However, as a footballer, it is very important to know how to train on your own so that you can maximize your time and energy and actually get at least 1% better everyday.

A lot of players waste time during their trainings because they work on things they will never be able to show during a game, which is why in this blog post I will be going over the best individual youth soccer drills that will directly improve the skills you need to succeed during a real game.

Best Youth Soccer Drills for Faster Development

• Barefoot juggling variations
• Ball control from the air
• Wall passing variations
• Wall passing with turns to dribble
• Shadow soccer dribbling drill
• Shadow soccer dribbling drill to Shooting
• Maximal Intent Barefoot sprints

Why Train Barefoot?

All of the drills on this post can be done with cleats or barefoot and I would highly recommend doing them barefoot, at least once in a while. Training barefoot is completely different than training with cleats on and there are a ton of benefits such as:

• Gives you a more personal feel for the soccer ball
• Strengthens your feet and ankles in different ways, including its muscles, joints, ligaments, tendons, and fascia
• Promotes more natural biomechanics gait patterns
• Playing barefoot on natural land like grass or sand allows you to perform grounding therapy which helps improve recovery, sleep, mitochondrial function, energy levels, and more.

A lot of the best professional players in the world grew up playing barefoot, either by choice or not, and this is one of the reasons they were able to develop their skills and talent faster than other players that did not spend as much time training barefoot during their childhood.

Barefoot juggling

The most simple drill, and arguably the most important one, that youth soccer players should be practicing daily is juggling the soccer ball barefoot. This drill can be performed on its own or it can also act as a warm up drill before soccer practice because it forces players to get a lot of high quality touches on the ball with their bare feet.

Although you won’t usually see soccer players juggling the ball during a real game, getting better at juggling the ball will help improve other essential soccer skills such as first touch, passing, receiving, keeping track of the ball with your eyes, and much more.

As with the rest of the drills on this list, make sure you use both your dominant and non dominant foot, and also challenge yourself by juggling at different heights, and with different sized balls. This is a fun soccer drill that is perfect to start off any training session for any age and skill level.

Ball Control From the Air Drill

This next soccer drill is designed to help you improve your ball control skills. For this drill you can do it by either juggling the ball a couple of times and then hitting the ball high in the air or simply start with the ball in your hand and throw it up in the air.

As the ball drops back down to the ground, the goal is to control the ball while keeping it as close to you as possible without letting it bounce everywhere. To make this more challenging use both feet equally and create a square or circle, as big or as small as you would like, and try to keep the ball under control with out it leaving the grid you created.

Wall Passing Drills

The best way to improve your passing and receiving skills individually is to find a wall, or use a soccer rebounder, which acts as training partners that never get tired. Depending on the type of wall or rebounder that you find, you can practice different types of passes, such as one-touch passes, two-touch passes, ground passes, air passes, or driven passes.

The goal with this drill is to challenge yourself by trying different types of passes with both feet, controlling the ball with different surfaces of the feet once it comes back to you, as well as hitting the ball at the wall with different speeds. For this drill you can choose a type of pass, a foot, set a timer, and you are ready to train.

After 2-3 minutes of work, take a rest and then practice a new technique. To get the most out of this drill do it at game speed and challenge yourself, do not just go through the motions.

Wall Passing Drills with Turns

This next drill can be used as a progression to the previous drill. Once you have practiced only wall passing for a certain amount of time, you can progress to wall passing with turns.

For this drill, pass the ball at the wall repeatedly, and after a few passes, work on turning with the ball and dribbling out to space. The point of this drill is to work both feet and to work on different types of turns, such as a half turn, the outside of the foot turn, the inside of the foot turn, or any other variation.

If you do not have a wall, simply work on kicking the ball in front of you, getting to the ball, turning, and dribbling past from where you started.

Shadow Soccer Dribbling Drill

This next drill is similar to when a boxer does “shadow boxing” except it is designed for soccer players to improve their dribbling skills. For this drill all you need is some open space, a soccer ball, your bare feet, and your imagination.

To start this drill, dribble around your open space at game-speed, if you have access to a full soccer field that is best, and imagine that there are defenders coming towards you trying to take the ball away. The goal of this drill is to dribble at game speed, use different skill moves, and use your imagination to evade “defenders” coming towards you.

If you are only going through the motions of dribbling this won’t help much which is why you have to do this at game speed, as you should with all of the drills on this list. The more you practice getting used to dribbling at game speed, the easier it will become once you step onto the field during a real game.

This is a great drill to encourage players to use their creativity and learn how to better express themselves. The important thing here is to use different types of skill moves and to get comfortable performing them at game speed.

Shadow Soccer Dribbling Drill to Shooting

This next drill can also act as a progression to the last two drills and must also be done at maximal intent, or game speed. No matter what position you play, one of the most important soccer skills to have is being able to shoot the soccer ball.

As an attacking player such as a striker, winger, or CAM, shooting is a skill that must be practiced a lot, but even as a defender, such as a center back or full back, knowing how to shoot the ball is very important because improving your shooting skills will help improve other skills such as passing and crossing the ball.

To begin this drill, find a goal, and if you do not have a goal, grab two cones or any other objects and create a goal. Position yourself far away from the goal and start by kicking the ball in the air, or by rolling the ball out to space.

Control the ball and dribble towards the goal with maximal intensity, and as you get closer to the goal, perform a skill move to create space for yourself, and then take a shot, aiming for the corners just as you would if there was an actual goalkeeper in goal. The more training balls you have, the better because you will spend less time ball shagging, and more time training.

Maximal Intent Barefoot Sprints

This next drill is a very simple drill that is designed to help players improve their speed and agility and it can be performed in different ways. For this drill you can use the lines of the field, or use soccer gear and equipment like cones to set up a straight line.

With this drill you can perform maximal intent sprints, meaning the player starts from one position and sprints as hard as they can to another, or they can perform maximal intent shuttle runs, which will work more on agility and changing directions.

With this drill you can also have the player sit, lay down, or start from any other position besides standing, to test them even more and make it more challenging. The best way to get faster is to sprint as hard as you can and teach your body how to run faster.

This can be done before or after a training session. Before the training session a player might have more energy, so they can focus more on speed, and if they do it at the end of the session they can focus more on conditioning.

Summary

To summarize, individual youth soccer drills and games have a time and place for a player’s training schedule, but they should not make up the majority of their training. Instead of individual training, youth players should focus more on team training and becoming the best soccer player on their current team to push towards making a better team every season.

As a youth coach, the most important thing is player development and the best way for players to develop is to play against other players. With that being said individual and private training do have a time and a place in a soccer player’s journey.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some fun soccer drills for kids to train individually?

To find out what the most fun youth soccer drills are for individual training check out the rest of this blog

What is the best youth soccer training equipment?

The best youth soccer training equipment includes soccer balls, soccer ball pumps, soccer cleats, shin guards, shin guard sleeves, soccer shorts, soccer goals, soccer rebounders, and soccer cameras.

How to Improve youth soccer skills?

To improve a youth player’s soccer skills it is important to have them spend as much time as they can having fun while mastering the ball, such as by using the drills on this list, as well as spending time in team trainings and real games.

Off the field it is also important to focus on improve the following things:

• Athleticism
• Mindset
• Breath work
• Recovery
• Mitochondria function
• Sleep
• Nutrition
• Hydration

If you are interested in private training to reach a new level in your soccer journey, contact me and mention this blog post or fill out the form on our private training page.