Sibyl Poston

Skill: Ball Control

Learning Objectives:
- Cognitive: TSWBAT understand and explain the 3 skill cues used to keep good control of
the soccer ball.
- Psychomotor: TSWBAT demonstrate how to keep proper control of the ball when
dribbling or trapping the ball.
- Affective: TSWBAT work independently or with a partner to practice their ball control
skills.
Skill Cues
- Since we have already gone over dribbling, we are going to combine out dribbling and
trapping cues. The way to remember it is S.I.T.
o S: soft touches. We want to make sure that we are only doing soft taps when
dribbling the ball. This will help us keep good control over the ball.
o I: inside of foot. When we are dribbling the ball, you want to use the inside of
your foot to hit the ball back and forth.
o T: trap the ball. When trapping the ball, remember the 2 different ways that we
can use to trap the ball.
Introduction
- Today we are going to be going over ball control. It is important to be able to have good
control of the ball when we are playing soccer so we can keep it away from the
defending team. Today, we are going to focus on dribbling the ball while maintaining
control of the ball. We are also going to learn two different ways to control the ball by
trapping the ball.
Activity One: Trapping the Ball
- There are a few different ways that you can trap the ball, but we are only going to focus
on two today. The two different ways that we are going to do are: using the inside of
your foot and using the bottom of your foot
- Have a partner kick you the ball and work on trapping the ball with the inside of your
foot and then swap to the bottom of your foot. – do it with both your left foot and your
right foot
- If you do not have a partner, you can use the wall.
Activity Two: Dribbling Through Cones
- Now since we can trap the ball, we are going to work on controlling the ball when
dribbling.
- Set up your cones in a line like this. You are going to start at one end and dribble
through the cones.
- Make sure that you are really focusing on controlling the ball and ‘trapping’ it with the
inside of your foot if needed before kicking again. If you need to start of slow to make
sure you have good control that is fine.
Activity Three: Red Light – Green Light
- Now we are going to combine our dribbling and our ball control. Have a partner call out
red light, green light, and yellow light.
- Green light: this means just dribble the ball. Dribble the ball around as fast as you can
while keeping good control over the ball.
- Red light: this means stop. To stop, you are going to trap the ball. The first round we are
going to trap the ball with the bottom of our foot. The second round we will trap the ball
with the inside of your foot.
- Yellow light: this means slow down while continuing to dribble the ball. Try not to call
this one out as much.