There are so many ways to improve your soccer skills!

Homework will be broken down into three levels: good, better, best and will comprise of two sections:

1. Individual Practice (individual ball mastery/juggling)

2. Watching Soccer - Watching professionals play so you can pick up little tips and see how they play the game. Start to put your knowledge of the game into analysing how it is played.

All homework is optional but the more you do, the more your understanding of the game will improve and the more you are likely to improve on the field as well.

Time Per Day = Time Per Year

5 minutes per day = 1825 minutes (more than 30 hours)

10 minutes per day = 3650 minutes (more than 60 hours)

15 minutes per day = 5475 minutes (more than 91 hours)

A short amount of time per day, consistently built up over a year adds up to a lot of practice!

Good

• Spend 5 minutes per day training on your own

• Watch one game per week

Better

• Spend 10 minutes per day training on your own

• Watch one game per week, analyse one per month

Best

• Spend 15 minutes per day training on your own

• Access MyPersonalFootballCoach free training app

• Watch one game per week, analyse two per month

Individual Practice

Practicing on your own is such an important part of developing as a soccer player. You will be working with your coach to come up with your own development plan during scheduled practice time but you can speed up your progress by doing more.

There will be monthly challenges uploaded to the Google Drive that you will be able to enter to win prizes.

There are a number of things you can do on your own to help you:

Website Resources - Lots of Practice Ideas in Here

Wall Practice - Just striking a ball against a wall will help improve your technique

Juggling - all you need is a ball and a small space. Practice using both feet and different areas of the foot (outside, inside, laces).

MyPersonalFootballCoach App - https://mypersonalfootballcoach.com/players-pass/

Watching Soccer

There is so much soccer around the world that we are able to access online or live on TV. Watch and try to emulate your favourite players, see how the game is played at the highest levels as well as just enjoying watching the game. There are lots of games each weekend at different times live but also replayed throughout the day.

You will find a printable template for completing your analysis on our Google Drive. You don’t have to analyse every game you watch, sometimes you can sit back and enjoy the game but the more you try to analyse it, the easier it will become and your understanding of the game will improve a lot as well!

Where To Watch

Live

• OneSoccer: https://onesoccer.ca/ (paid subscription)

  • Canadian Premier League & Canadian Championship

  • National team home games (men & women)

  • Concacaf Nations League (international)

  • Spanish Women’s League

  • Liga MX (Mexico-men’s); Brasileirão (Brazil-men’s)

• FA Player: https://faplayer.thefa.com/home/all (FREE with registered account)

  • FA Women’s Super League & Women’s Cup (England)

• DAZN: https://www.dazn.com/ (paid subscription)

  • Premier League; Men's/Women's Champions League; Europa League; NFL, Rugby, Boxing and more

• NWSL on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/nwslofficial2 (FREE)

  • Select NWSL games can be viewed live on Twitch NWSL Schedule

• TSN - TV

  • Various games and leagues

• SportsNet: https://www.snnow.ca/ (paid subscription)

  • Bundesliga (Germany-Men’s); FA Cup (England-Men’s); more

• Ata Football: https://www.atafootball.com/ (FREE with registered account)

  • Women’s games from around the world, free live and on demand

  • Women’s Champions League, FAWSL, D1 Feminine (France), Frauen Bundesliga (Germany)

Recorded/Historical

• Footballia: https://footballia.net/?locale=en (FREE with registered account)

  • 22,222 matches from 1953-2021 from 344 competitions

  • Soccer video encyclopedia!

• Football Origin: https://www.footballorgin.com/category/full-match-replay/ (FREE)

  • All top European men’s leagues; women’s games (more recent)

• Women’s World Cup 2015

• Women's Olympics 2016

• Women's Euro 2017

• Women's World Cup 2019

• Youtube

  • Women's Games - WSL and Champions League (recent)

  • NWSL (sort by oldest to newest for full games)

Soccer can be found all over the internet, much of it for free. If you don’t want to pay to watch it live, use the resources above to still be able to watch some full games. Highlights are great but watching the full game gives you a bit more insight into how many mistakes professionals still make but also how different phases of the game are played.

Suggested Games

Men’s

• Liverpool v Olympiacos - Champions League Group Stage - December 2004

• Inter v Roma - Italy Serie A - October 2005

• France v Brazil - World Cup 2006 Quarter Final

• USA v Mexico - Gold Cup Final 2011

• Manchester City v QPR - Premier League - May 2012

• Brazil v Germany - World Cup 2014 Semi Final

Women’s

• England v USA - World Cup 2019 Semi Final

• USA v Canada - 2012 Olympics Semi Final

• Chelsea v Lyon - Champions League Semi Final - April 2019

• Netherlands v Denmark - Euro 2017 Final

• Germany v Norway - World Cup 2015 Group Stage

• Seattle Reign v Kansas City - NWSL Championship 2014

If you are completing the analysis task, feel free to choose any game you like! It doesn’t have to be a professional game, you could watch a sibling or friend play and make some notes just to get into the practice and to work on your game understanding.