Soccer Agility - Soccer Conditioning

Soccer Agility – Introduction

Throughout the history of soccer, players have constantly perfected their skills and pushed the limits of the game and we're now witnessing a fast-paced soccer where every second counts. Speed and agility are two of the most important physical factors for a professional nowadays, but in this article we'll focus on the latter. Let's take a look at how agility in soccer affects other skills and abilities.

Soccer Agility – Importance

There are several moments during a soccer match where all that agility soccer training will pay off. It doesn't really matter what position you're playing on, since every play needs to be quick on their feet (although we'll discuss later how each position makes use of agility). Here are a few skills that are affected by agility and can be further improved by having a strong agility soccer training schedule:

Dribbling – Probably the most important skill affected by agility, dribbling makes full use of a player's quickness. Being able to chance direction quickly, move your feet fast around, over and behind the ball as well as the ability to quickly launch yourself off the ground in a sprint are all related to agility and all these factors affect your dribbling skill.

Sprints – The speed you obtain during a sprint won't be affected too much by your soccer agility exercises, but your burst acceleration will. Actually, when working on improving your sprints, you will have little choice for increasing your top speed (for the most part, speed is a natural ability – you either have it, or you don't), but you can maximize your initial acceleration by being more agile.

Tackling – Being able to get down on the ground for a sliding tackle quicker will make your tackling skill more precise, reducing the chance you foul or miss-time your tackles. Good soccer agility will also help you get off the ground quicker, recovering the ball in case your tackle knocked it off the feet of the attacker.

Finishing – As a deep lying striker whose primary job is to make the most out your teammates' crosses, working your way around your marker and getting to the ball is crucial. Having a good agility allows you just that and once you get to the ball, you can finish off the play as well.

Defending – Agility helps a defender in the same way it helps a dribble, but a defender will use his quickness and ability to change directions with ease to counter the dribble instead. This is especially important to left and right backs or wingers, who tend to have to face fast players who dribble using their own speed and agility.

Soccer Agility – Player Position Requirements

Goalkeepers – Agility exercises take up a lot of a goalkeeper's training schedule, since they help him move on the goal line faster to catch a ball aimed at the other end of the goal, or help him come off the goal line to collect crosses with more ease. To some extent, agility soccer training also affects a goalkeeper's reflexes, although reflexes are a much more complex chemical formula encompassing natural talent, agility and various other skills.

Soccer AgilityDefenders – As I noted earlier, a defender can make good use of their agility by countering dribbles and tackling correctly. A defender is also forced to sprint out of defense on many occasions during a match, forming the offside line and leaving strikers out of play, so by improving their acceleration through agility exercises, defenders actually improve this off-the-ball skill as well.

Midfielders – For left and right midfielders, agility exercises work towards helping them dribble easier and giving them the acceleration boost needed to overcome their direct opponents. For central midfielders and playmakers, agility can create an awesome combination with the player's vision, allowing him to quickly gain control of the ball, turn it in the direction of a teammate and unleash the pass.

By practicing your agility on a constant basis, you can turn the 4-5 seconds usually required to execute this receive-turn-pass process to a couple of seconds, which is quite an improvement considering you'll have at least one or two opponents charging for you as soon as you're about to gain possession in midfield.

Attackers – Since agility affects sprinting, dribbles and your ability to throw your marker off balance and finish a cross, you can pretty much deduct that it's a crucial skill to work upon as a striker. In the opponent's box, you have infinitely less time to act than anywhere else on the pitch and improving your ball control speed through agility is equally crucial.