How to Play Striker

The front end is one of the most challenging and trickiest positions to play in soccer. A striker is a front-end player who employs around the opponent’s goalpost to make a goal for his team. This guide shares a step-by-step process on how to play striker for a soccer team like a pro.

How to Play Striker

A striker has the key to make or break a deal for his team. Thus, it is a very crucial position to play in soccer. There are multiple ways you can use to polish yourself as a striker. One of them is discussed here in this guide.

Practice Drill for Striker

Setup Your Obstacle Course

1. You can set up your obstacle course just like professionals very easily. The only requirement is a clear field that has a goalpost.
2. Use cones as markers to set up your obstacle course for practice. If you don’t have cones, you can use any three-dimensional objects as markers to make your obstacle course.
3. Place your cones in a zigzag position a few feet apart from each other.
4. Now for the goalpost, again, use any three-dimensional objects that can serve as markers. Place two markers at 4.5-5 feet distance from the crossbars. It is done to make a shot between the crossbars and the markers.

Your obstacle course is now ready!

Practice Your Shooting Technique

1. Work on Your Run-up

The run-up gives you momentum to shoot a powerful shot. It is because the strength to make a powerful move in football comes from great leg strength. Thus, a run-up will set your body in pre-motion that will help you to transfer the power-pack momentum from your legs to the ball.

Take four to five steps back from the ball and approach the ball from an angle. Use the obstacle course to boost up your accuracy and ability to make a shoot in less space.

2. Plant Your Foot

A player accumulates his strength in his foot to hit the ball with power to make a great shot. To do so, he plants his one foot (non-dominant one usually) on the ground and uses his other foot to transfer the total energy from his leg to hit the ball.

Plant your foot with a good amount of force and energy so that you don’t misbalance from your position while swinging your other leg with power.

3. Use Your Arms

Apart from the leg movement, your arms also add to a powerful shot.

Wondering how? 

When you swing both of your arms in the air, it gets easier to push your body forward to hit the ball. Also, when a player spreads his arms wide, it helps him maintain a balance with the ground while making his move.

4. Work on Your Leg Swing

When someone is new to this game, kicking a ball correctly with great power can be challenging. Why? This is because the person isn’t well versed with the leg swing technique.

Thus, work on swinging your leg correctly to hit the ball at the right corner of the goalpost. Avoid swinging the leg haphazardly in the air. Instead, slow down your place while swinging your dominant leg and see where you go wrong.

Moreover, focus on your swing calculations. See at what angle and by what force you need to swing your leg backward so that an excellent forward swing comes out as a result.

5. Strike The Ball

There are several ways to strike the ball. To get the right goal, you can curve the ball, make a Trivela Shot, shoot a knuckleball, etc. On a general note, what is the right way to approach the ball to make a goal?

As said earlier, there are multiple ways to shoot the ball. In some shots, you need a spin and long forward trajectory, while in some shots, you just need to follow through with the ball without making it a spin.

So choose your technique correctly. If you want to shoot the ball without a spin, hit the ball below its center. It will give uplift and set the ball in a projectile motion. Also, aim where to shoot correctly and quickly. As per the professional strikers, the corners of the goalpost are the excellent aim to shoot the shot.

6. Work on Your Follow Through

Lastly, it is very important to work on your follow-through. Following through the swing or the motion of your body may not seem a big deal at first, but it matters a lot. When a player follows through the motion correctly, they minimize the chances of getting injuries.

When a striker plays on the field, they don’t have enough time to restrict their follow through because of lack of closure and the moment itself. If someone ever does so, they are likely to get their ankle fractured.

Thus, when you are working on putting in so much effort to kick a ball, you should also work on how to end this.

Put Everything Together

Once you know how to your goal, work on building your accuracy. Practice again and again. Reset your obstacle course again at a lesser or greater separation to make things work out for you.

Remember, there is no other way to succeed other than practicing and polishing you to the brilliance.

Here is a video tutorial on how you can practice becoming a brilliant striker on the team.

Tips to Become a Better Striker

• To be an effective striker, you need to put yourself in a gaming situation. Precisely, a player has to get serious and make up their mind even while practicing as if they are playing an actual match on the field.
• Learn to be under pressure. A striker performs on the frontline. Thus, he needs to be quick with his movements and decisions.
• Avoid making a shot when the ball is too close to you. Try to distance a ball a little bit using body feint and go ahead with your performance.

Conclusion

Today the time and technology have got advanced. Coaches use a proper web-based application to select which player will suit best for a striker. Thus, the competition has got a little bit tough. But don’t lose your heart if it doesn’t work out for you on the first try. Follow this guide and work your blood-sweat to become brilliant in your game.