Professional Soccer Players Training

Professional soccer players are well-conditioned athletes. Fitness is critical to a player's ability to stay employed, and to his team's success. According to Sports Fitness Advisor, players cover over five miles during a match, with about 35 percent of that distance at a jogging pace and 11 percent sprinting. Moreover, players perform at 80 percent to 90 percent of their maximum heart rate. Once the expectations for running are established, skill training follows.

  1. Running

    • Just as football players have several practices before they put on the pads, soccer players complete many training sessions before they touch a ball. Specific regiments vary by team, but it's understood in professional circles that running is the first order of training, ranging from long-distance runs, to wind sprints, to jogging backward and sideways. Running helps increase endurance of the legs, heart and lungs.

    Flexibility

    • Stretching is important to increase flexibility and guard against injury, but professional teams are getting away from stationary stretches, like bending over to touch toes and lifting one leg behind the back to tax the hamstring. Recent research has suggested that some stationary movements can weaken muscles and decrease performance before games. Dynamic stretches, such as hopping on one foot while extending a hand to the ground, are becoming commonplace. Pros dedicate a portion of each practice and match warm-up to stretching.

    Ball Control

    • All players, goalkeepers included, need touches on the ball each day to hone their timing and technique for passing, trapping, clearing and shooting. Pros are still drilled on many of the techniques they learned as children, like one-touch passing (without trapping) with a partner or juggling the ball with their feet, thighs, chest and head without allowing it to touch the ground. Ground passes, for professionals, should be played precisely to a teammate's feet, even if it's played through or behind opponents. Pros should also have the ability to keep their head up while dribbling, knowing where the ball is at their feet without having to look down. It takes countless touches on a ball during their developmental years and numerous hours dribbling around cones to get there.

    Positions

    • Goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards all work on different skills that are specific to their roles on the team. Defenders may run more backward sprints and practice containing offensive players to the outside of the field or heading the ball back to their goalkeeper. Midfielders practice long diagonal passes through the center of the field to their forwards. Strikers get extra time for shooting, and fakes and feints against defenders.

    Tactics

    • Coaches base their formation and strategy on the individual strengths and weaknesses of their players. With a possession strategy, for example, teams work on establishing a route to the goal from the back with several short passes, patiently looking for individual matchups that could be won in the attack. Almost daily, professional teams have intrasquad scrimmages to work on a game plan, experiment with different combinations of players in various positions and rehearse set pieces like corner kicks, free kicks and penalty kicks.