My first real soccer experience was in elementary school.
I was at the park playing with my friends and there was a group of college kids playing a pickup game a little distance away.
I wasn’t all that interested – it wasn’t the first time I saw people playing soccer or with a soccer ball. But what got me interested was this man.
The college kids’ ball rolled far away from their pickup game spot and stopped at the foot of this nice man. The man stopped the ball, took a little step back, ran up to it, and kicked it.
What followed was the most beautiful curve I ever saw at the time. It blew my mind. After that day, I tried to kick anything I saw and make it bend like that. That was how I got into soccer.
I’ve since realized that my fascination with the curve of the ball isn’t particular. Many people want to learn how to kick and curve a soccer ball as if their lives depended on it.
This article will show you how.
3 Ways to Curve a Soccer Ball
Here are three ways you can curve a soccer ball.
The Foot & Ball Connection Should Be Spot-on
The first thing to know about curving a soccer ball is that it is harder than it looks. I mean, I tried so hard as a kid that I even had to join a local team to learn it. Even as a kid, I was unable to fully master it until I got some muscles in my legs. You have to be a realist.
The second thing to learn about curving a soccer ball is that you have to have your fundamentals of kicking a soccer ball down pat. Don’t know how? Read this article to learn how to kick a soccer ball.
Now, the first step in learning how to kick a soccer ball is to make sure that you connect properly with the ball. This is the most important thing for any type of soccer kick.
To curve a soccer ball, the inside or outside of your kicking foot is the main contact point. These parts of your foot must connect with the ball just under its diameter line as you kick it.
Proper Foot Placement
The way you run up to the ball, where your standing foot is planted and where it is pointed, the distance between the ball and your standing foot, and how high you raise your kicking foot are the key elements of a good kick.
The same applies when you’re trying to curve a soccer ball.
With the foot and ball contact points in mind, the next thing is your run up to the ball. For practice purposes, the ball should be stationary. A very important thing to note is that the ball should be at an angle away from the center of your target.
Your run-up should also be at a 45° angle to the ball and start at three paces away from the ball. By your third step, plant your standing foot about six inches from the ball and point it towards the direction of your kick, then apply what you learned in the first step above.
Proper foot placement helps stabilize you enough for your hips to swing properly, which aids the curve.
Good Follow-through is Important
This is probably the most important step in curving a soccer ball. I finally learned this as a pre-teen after years of trying and failing to curve a soccer ball as a kid.
Following through with your kick is actually what helps the ball curve. I’ll tell you how.
Following through with your kick means swinging your legs a little more after the foot’s contact with the ball in a push-like motion.
This push-like motion adds extra strength to the kicks, which generates the extra spin that makes the ball curve as you want it to.
This motion starts from the hips, so good foot placement is important.
After contacting the ball at the right spot with your kicking foot, plant your standing foot in a way that allows you to swing your hips, then rotate your hips a little more after the kick to generate the extra spin that bends the ball.
Practice these three steps as often as you can, and you will become a pro at bending a soccer ball.
Final Thoughts
While the steps above are mostly for curving the ball with the inside of your foot, the trick also works for the outside of your foot.
The only difference is that you’re running up from the opposite angle to where the ball is placed. Outside of the foot, curves are called “trivela”.
Soccer players you can watch to learn how to kick a trivela include Luka Modric, Ricardo Quaresma, João Cancelo, and Tomáš Rosický.
Like every soccer skill, mastery of curving a ball comes with repetition. Practice makes perfect. Don’t stop practicing these steps until you can “bend it like Beckham”!
