How To: Pass A Soccer Ball With The Inside Of Your Foot

Passng Technique: The instep pass is the most common way and the most efficient to pass a ball in soccer. It requires the use of your inside foot. Passing a ball is similar to shooting. It requires you to have your plant foot a foot away from the ball. Bend your standing leg, and follow through the ball with the inside of your foot making sure you lean forward and with a locked ankle.  In this article I will guide you to help improve your passing by talking about the different things you need to pass a soccer ball correctly. 

(Before attempting this excercise make sure you are fully warmed up and you have stretched. This is for your benefit to avoid any injuries)

Steps to improve your passing ability

1. Plant foot: When you are passing a ball your plant foot should be a foot away from the ball. Your plant foot should be a foot away from the ball because it makes it more comfortable for you as player when passing a ball. It also allows your passing foot to follow through with enough space between your plant foot and passing foot, so you dont hit your other foot creating a bad pass of the ball. It should also be facing where you want to pass the ball.

2. Using the inside of the foot: Make sure when you pass ball you keep your passing foot horizontal because this makes the pass more accurate. Think about like this to make it easier for you. Your passing foot is like a hockey stick. It requires the same priniciples accept you are doing this with your leg and foot.

3. Leg position: When passing the more ball depending how much power you need or want to put into your pass the more your back leg lifts up from behind. You can vary the power of your pass, for example if I was to pass a ball 5 meters to my team mate I would use less of a back lift from my passing leg. If I wanted more power behind my pass because I was passing to a team mate 15 meters away, I would lift my passing leg from behind a lot higher so that way I have more of a follow through when I make impact with ball. This would add more power.

4. Body postion: When passing the ball you want to lean slightly forward so that you apply the pass on the ground. If you lean to far back the ball will go in the air creating a bad pass for your team mate. Make sure your head is also over the ball. The last thing you want is to turn over possesion of the ball due to your bad pass. This is the crucial difference between a good and a bad pass and maintaining possesion of the ball.

5. Flexability: It is important to have flexability in your legs so that you can apply more power to your pass because you will be able to lift your leg from behind when passing the ball higher. This also benefits you as a player in many other ways such as avoiding any injuries to yourself.

6. 45 degree angle: As you can in the picture above that is the 45 degree angle. This allows you to pass the ball more precise by using the inside of your foot and passing through the center ball to create a good pass. It also creates the ball after you made your pass to travel along the ground more smoothly. The 45 degree angle also allows your standing knee to bend acting as a better stabilizer to hold up your body weight and giving you more balance. If you do not have the 45 degree angle, you will not pass through the center of the ball instead passng through to high over the ball creating a bad pass

7. Hips: You must be thinking why your hips improve your pass of the ball, well its simple. If your hips do not face towards your intended target with your plant foot your pass will simply go off target. This is the common mistake that a lot of players make in todays game. This is another crucial point to a precise and good pass.

8. Precision: In passing , precision is so important. How much power you put into your pass depending on the distance. The accurancy of your pass. Making sure your hips and plant foot are facing your target. Looking up to where you pass the ball so that your pass does not go off target to someone else. Your technique of passing has to be good to create an even more precise pass making it easier for your team mate to control the ball. The best passing players in the world today are the most precise ones that is what makes them so good, and their ability to keep their error rate to a minimal amount. The best teams in the world are the best passers of the ball because they are able to retain possession and create changes on goal.

9. Following through: In passing depending how much power you want put in your pass, if you make a long pass you must follow through with your pass fully. If it is a short a pass, you do not need to follow as much because you will not need that type of power. Following through wth your pass creates a smoother motion for your pass and creates more power in your pass. It makes your pass more precise also.