Gary Fixter - Foot Techniques to be a good footballer

1 Learn to haggle with every part of your foot. Practice dribbling in a 27-yard (30-yard) area, varying your speed and the part of your foot you use to move the ball. Try to make the ball feel like a natural extension of your foot, stopping, moving and changing direction at will. Some ways to practice this are:

* Obstacle races: zigzag cones or small objects and then haggle through them with the highest controlled speed you can. Your goal is to pass all the cones without hitting or skipping any. As you get better, speed increases.

2 Raise your head when haggling. This requires very good foot skills, but you should start working on them as soon as possible. Advanced soccer players intuitively know where the ball is on their feet most of the time, allowing them to look up and find the next pass or next shot opportunity. Although you'll always look down occasionally, the longer you can keep your head up, the better.

* Practice raising your head with each dribbling exercise you do, especially in training.

3 Work on exercises to manipulate the ball. These simple and quick exercises are a great way to work on your footing skills, even if you would never perform the movement itself in a match. For all of these exercises, start moving your feet as fast as possible while staying in control.

* Bounce the ball between your legs as if you were passing it quickly from the inside of your right foot to the inside of your left foot. Work on using small movements to "cut" the ball from one side to the other.

* Perform pounding with the toe of the ball leaving the ball in front of you and alternating touching it on the top with the bottom of your foot. To get faster, try falling onto the balls of your feet each time and keep your knees slightly bent.

4 Practice passing in an instant. The best players know that soccer is a team sport.

If you haggle too long, they'll take the ball away from you every time. Therefore, you have to spend the same amount of time practicing your passes as you do practicing your individual footing skills. You must be able to make quick passes with one touch (not stop the ball as it rolls towards you), and be able to prepare and launch a good cross pass in just two touches.

5 Perfect some advanced moves.

Warm up by spending time with the ball by yourself. Dribble much faster with precision. Keep your head slightly raised as you dribble the ball so you can see the field.

Here are some popular moves you should learn:

* The flip flap, the snake or the Ronaldinho

* Move the ball out with the outside of your foot, then quickly flip it over with the inside of your foot.

* Your foot will wrap around the ball, pushing it in the opposite direction from you and then returning it, fooling the defender.

* Stop and start

* Slowly jog with the ball.