Are you a midfielder in your football team? You must have tons of questions regarding the skills and abilities required to reach the top levels. In this article, we will explore some useful pro tips that makes you a better midfielder.
The Ability to Use Your Weak Foot: Why It Matters in Modern Football
Midfielders are the engine of any team, linking defense to attack with precise passes, creative vision, and tactical awareness. That explains why most of the time midfielders focus on developing their passing skills, creativity and vision, as these elements allow them to link up the game, to switch to the other sides for spaces, and to make key passes that may eventually turn into assists.
But there is one aspect that they often overlook, that is the ability to use both strong and weak foot. A two-footed player is an absolute nightmare for opposition defenders, because they have no clue about what the attacker will do next. Top players like Kevin De Bruyne and Luka Modrić dominate partly because defenders can’t predict their next move. In today’s high-press football, relying on just one foot makes you predictable and vulnerable.
Here are some data-driven ways to help you develop and improve weak foot:
1. Monitor Your Foot Usage with Smart Football Trackers
In a complex, high-pressure game situation, the choice of foot to handle the ball is many times subconscious. Most players don’t realize how often they favor their strong foot until they see the data.
Monitoring your foot usage preference using smart football trackers like INSAIT JOY Smart Shin Guards turn guesswork into actionable insights. INSAIT JOY Smart Shin Guards are designed with embedded wearable trackers positioned on both feet, thus allowing you to quantify your left/right foot usage ratio during matches and training. This technology enables you to see exactly how often you avoid your weak foot in high-pressure situation, meanwhile helping you track improvements over time to ensure your training pays off.
2. Weak-foot Specific Training Drills
A pro tip is to dedicate the entire sessions to your non-dominant foot. For example, use only your weak foot for passing, dribbling, and shooting, while tracking consistency and accuracy with football performance trackers like smart shin guards.
3. Use Smart Football to Develop Footwork Accuracy of Your Weak Foot
INSAIT JOY Smart Football is a great tool to practice with your weak foot. Many of the gamified drills in the INSAIT JOY app are designed to improve footwork accuracy and ball handling techniques of your both feet. For example:
- "Pull a Vee" develops the skills to dribble the ball from one foot to another in order to create spaces for a long-range shot or pass;
- "Inside Foot Push" and "Full Instep Push" require you to pull the ball with one foot then use another foot to push the ball forward again.
The INSAIT JOY app turns these drills into gamified challenges with progress tracking, so that you stay motivated while improving your techniques.
Mastering your weak foot is just one key midfield skill. In Part II of this article, we'll cover:
- Load Management;
- Injury Prevention and Recovery; and
- Long-term Development Habits.
Stay tuned!
Looking to level up your weak foot performance? Act now:
- Learn more about INSAIT JOY Smart Shin Guards and INSAIT JOY Smart Football;
- Download the app now: search "INSAIT JOY" in the App Store or Google Play; and
- Visit INSAIT JOY Store now.