"Shooting" - By Judes Augustin, semi pro player.
Although soccer is a team sport, the beauty of the
game is truly displayed through the magic plays of great individualists
like Maradona, Pele, Ronaldinho, Zidane... Such players become great
either thru hard work and/or being just gifted as they can do anything
with and without the ball, which brings us to today’s themes of
dribbling, passing and shooting. These players usually exhibit all three
qualities.
Shooting is more of a defender or a scorer’s skill. Great scorers need to be good strikers as well. How many times
have we seen David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Pele or Platini curling
free kicks over defenders into the net? Roberto Rivelino or
Roberto Carlos were instead powerful and accurate strikers.
On a free kick, they can shoot the ball thru a wall of defenders
exactly at the space emptied by a teammate on the wall. It
takes time and lots of practice to accomplish such feast. All
the great scorers, in the history of the game, have scored
goals more with their feet than with headers, which demonstrates
the importance of knowing how to shoot. Like the saying:" If
you don’t shoot, you don’t score". The legendaries
Gerd Muller, Just Fontaine were very good strikers. Either
in the penalty box or outside of it, they would, most of the
time, strike that ball as soon as they dribble past the defender
and see the keeper trying to close the angle. If you don’t
practice it enough, 9 times out of 10 you will miss. Defenders
do not need to be accurate in their kick, because, usually,
they are not trying to score. They are just looking to get
the ball out of their half and have powerful kicks.
Like any other sports, some players are gifted, some work
hard to get to the next level, others will just be role players.
However, whichever category you think you are in, if you can
understand the game and your role on the field, you can always
help any team by playing your part and working hard..
