A Prayer for Air

TS, Once Reluctant, Now an Enthusiast!

JC and AW Showing How Dangerous an Air Ball Can Be

Play the ball in the air! Don't let it drop! If you've heard this once you've heard it a thousand times. It an important phase of the game and its one that many female players at the younger ages seem to struggle over. U-12, U-13 and even U-14 girls, even some of the most physically aggressive, shy away from rising to drive away a midfield punt or rocket home a beautifully served cross. Failure to play that ball in the air squanders gift wrapped scoring opportunities -- and at the higher levels of the youth game, we don't see so many of these opportunities that we can be throwing away 10% or 20% of them. The Bangu Tsunami U-13 girls (Minnesota State Cup and Region 3 champions this past year) kept statistics that showed as much as 50% of their goals were scored in the air. Perhaps more importantly, failure to play the ball in the midfield and defending third of the field puts the team under unnecessary and often dangerous defensive pressure.

You will hear a number of purists drip with disdain when the topic of long and lofted balls comes up. We would agree that, over reliance on long balls to target players results in ugly and predictable soccer that good teams can easily read and defend -- the USWNT's recent run in the World Cup is living proof of that. Yet its still part of the game and, much as some of the "blue noses" might like otherwise, its not leaving. A long and lofted attacking ball from a wide and deep position is an incredibly effective attacking option. Moreover, many an opponent will play this way even if your team plays like Arsenal of three years ago -- intricate build up and gorgeous, "play to feet" soccer. In fact, that Arsenal team was not too comfortable in the air and Bolton's coach, Sam Alardyce, chose to attack Arsenal that way back in their Thierry Henry glory days and he and his players had a measure of success against Arsenal when everyone else failed.

So, our girls must be working to add this to their personal bag of skills. We spend time on this phase of the game in training but, just as with foot skills, our players need to work on this at home. Unlike with foot skills, however, they need help from a parent, a sibling or a friend. Drive 50 balls to them a couple of times a week. If you can't kick a ball with accuracy and some power and loft, throw to them 50 times. The important point is to have your daughter getting used to the mechanics of heading and the physics of intersecting with a lofted ball. Also, the practice will get each girl comfortable with the notion that the ball won't hurt them. If your daughter is really fearful of being hurt, you might consider headgear like that sold by Full 90. While there is no evidence that headgear is necessary from a safety standpoint, some very able coaches have observed that it seems to make girls play in the air with greater confidence. Yeah, the likes of Len and Steve frown but they would concede that there is no harm and, if it make an aerialist out of a player who has been shrinking from this part of the game, go for it.

The bottom line is this -- the sooner a young girl gets comfortable with the aerial phase of the game, the sooner she can play effectively at the highest levels available to her.