How to Get Better at Soccer: 9 Practical Tips to Improve Faster

No matter where you are in your soccer journey, there is a high chance that if you’re reading this post, you’re looking to take your game to the next level. Whether you’re a beginner learning the basics, a recreational player looking to sharpen your skills, or a competitive athlete chasing peak performance, knowing how to get better at soccer comes down to several key variables, such as passion, training environment, consistency, and habits on and off the pitch.

I’ve played soccer since I can remember, at various levels of the U.S. soccer pyramid, from club to high school, college, and amateur/semi-professional teams in the 4th division of U.S. Soccer. I also graduated from San Jose State University with a degree in Kinesiology: rehab science and I am a Certified Personal Trainer, Certified nutritionist, and soccer coach.

One of my main goals with this website is to share the training knowledge that has helped me become a better player in a shorter amount of time through smart, consistent training and focusing on the right things on and off the field. In this blog post, I will go over a complete guide on how to get better at soccer with many practical tips you can start using today.

How Do You Get Better at Soccer?

Becoming a better soccer player requires a holistic approach that combines technical skills development, physical fitness, mental toughness, and recovery to succeed in this physically demanding sport. The best soccer players understand that improvement does not come overnight, and instead it comes from practicing consistently for a long period of time.

The following nine practical tips will give you a complete roadmap for improvement, covering the most important things you need to focus on improving. Follow these steps, and you’ll set yourself up to become a better soccer player at any level.

Build a Real Passion for the Game

Building a real passion for the game is the foundation of your soccer journey, and it’s what separates a great soccer player from an average player. When you truly love and enjoy the game, training sessions become something you want to do rather than something you have to do, and you’ll naturally find yourself taking more actions to improve.

Passion fuels discipline, keeps you motivated during tough periods, and helps you stay committed to your long-term goals, even when progress feels slow. The more connected you are to the sport, the more likely you are to put in the conscious effort to improve daily, weekly, and yearly by truly analyzing all of the actions you make every day.

Develop Discipline and a Consistent Practice Routine

Discipline and consistency are what separate players who plateau from those who continuously improve at their craft, making the difference between taking action towards reaching their goals instead of leaving their goals as simply a wish. A structured training schedule should include focused practice sessions with a team at least 2-3 times per week, one form of unstructured play through the week, as well as time for athletic development work, injury prevention, and recovery.

The key to practicing consistently is showing up even when motivation is low and understanding that regular practice with proper focus yields better results than random intense training sessions. Small wins from consistent practice compound over time, transforming you into a better soccer player in a faster time, if you’re doing the right things correctly on and off the field.

Train Smarter, Not Harder, and Find Your Talent

To do the right things on and off the field means to train smarter not harder. Training smarter means maximizing your development by focusing on quality over quantity and addressing both on-field and off-field factors that impact your performance as a soccer player.

This is much different from mindlessly working hard for the sake of working hard without a real sense of direction. On the pitch, smart training involves practicing consistently with game-like scenarios, training at match speed, and using other training methods like barefoot training, fascia training, and physical training to improve your touch and ball control.

Off the field, smart training is made up of optimizing your sleep, nutrition, hydration, EMF exposure, and overall recovery. By taking care of these areas, you create the foundation needed to fully tap into your unique strengths and abilities—making it easier to discover and develop the talents that set you apart in the field.

Every single player has unique strengths and abilities based on their physical attributes and playing style that make them special on the field, such as natural dribbling, exceptional passing vision, shooting accuracy, or tactical understanding of the game. Your job as a developing soccer player is to experiment with different playing styles, positions, and roles to discover what you do best, then build your game around that core strength while maintaining solid basic skills.

To find your talent, expose yourself to various game situations by playing in different formations, competing against different levels of opposition, analyzing footage, and actively seeking feedback from coaches and teammates who can observe your performance objectively. Once you identify your standout traits, sharpen these skills like a weapon and let them become your trademark on the field, giving you the confidence to make an impact during competitive play.

Master the Basic Skills of the Game

Soccer is a simple game that should be played simply, even at the highest level, but playing simply requires mastering the fundamental technical skills that form the foundation of great play. These basic skills include:

• Ball control
• Accurate short passes and long passes
• Dribbling skills
• The ability to escape tight spaces
• Shooting practice
• Defending
• Developing your weaker foot

You must also develop essential mental skills such as:

• Awareness
• Decision making
• Composure
• Creativity
• Game IQ- Understanding when the right moment is to pass, dribble, or create space under pressure.

Focused training on these fundamental skills through team training, small-sided games, and solo soccer drills will create the solid foundation needed to execute more advanced techniques consistently during a game.

Play in Different Environments and Formats

The best way to accelerate your soccer progress is by playing regularly and exposing yourself to different game formats that challenge different aspects of the game, such as:

• Small-sided games
• Futsal
• Beach soccer
• Soccer tennis
• Soccer ping pong

All of these variations of the game will help develop your technical skills, quick decision-making, composure under pressure, and ability to play in tight spaces with limited touches.

Also playing on different surfaces, in various weather conditions, and against players of different skill levels, from recreational pickup games to competitive games, improves your adaptability and challenges you to stay motivated while continuously pushing your boundaries.

Improve your Mental Toughness

Mental toughness is another trait that separates good players from great ones, helping you stay focused, resilient, and confident during high-pressure situations on the field. Developing mental resilience involves setting both short-term goals and long-term goals while tracking your progress to stay motivated through the inevitable ups and downs of your soccer journey.

Train your mind like you train your body through visualization, meditation, and positive self-talk and body language, because the players who stay mentally strong are the ones who rise when the pressure is highest and can maintain peak performance throughout an entire match.

Improve your Physical Fitness and Athleticism

The best way to develop fitness and athleticism as a soccer player is to play the game a lot, spend time training barefoot, play multiple sports, and focus on optimizing your fascia system and breathing mechanics. Your fascia is the connective tissue that covers your entire body and stores the elastic energy required for running, kicking, and every other skill you perform on the soccer field.

Your goal as a soccer player should be to become a more fascia-driven athlete, which all top athletes already are consciously or subconsciously, allowing you to move more efficiently and explosively during games because you are more in-tune with your body. Along with improving your athleticism comes developing proper breathing mechanics because your movement and breath are directly linked together.

This means that learning how to breathe efficiently through your nose and diaphragm will help improve your athleticism and vice versa.

Prioritize Every Aspect of Recovery

Recovery is just as important as all of the training you do because it’s during rest periods that your body adapts, strengthens, and prepares for the next training session or match. Basic recovery techniques include:

• Sleep
• Proper hydration
• Proper Nutrition
• Protection from EMF exposure.
• Grounding Therapy

Advanced recovery techniques involve things like:

• Active recovery through light movement
• Myofascia release massage
• Breathing exercises
• Red light therapy
• Cold/hot therapy

Smart recovery also means listening to your body, managing training intensity to avoid burnout, and understanding that sometimes doing less allows you to train harder when it matters most.

Learn from Coaches, Professional Players, Teammates, and Opponents

The fastest path to improvement comes from actively seeking knowledge and feedback from everyone around you in the soccer community, as each person offers unique insights that can accelerate your development. Your coaches provide structured guidance, tactical understanding, and technical corrections that can fix weak points in your game you might not have even realized.

Watching professional matches and analyzing players in your position is one of the best ways to improve your understanding of soccer tactics. Teammates offer different perspectives, can help you practice specific skills through small-sided games and training sessions, and they help create the competitive environment needed to push each other to higher levels.

Even opponents can teach valuable lessons and new ideas, such as by observing how they play, what works against you, and how they solve problems on the field.

Final Thoughts

Becoming a better soccer player is not about doing everything at once—it’s about focusing on the right things, practicing consistently, and staying committed over time. Whether it’s building a genuine passion for the game, mastering basic and advanced skills, improving your physical fitness, or developing mental toughness, each step you take compounds to make you a more complete player.

The nine tips in this guide give you a practical framework for long-term growth, but the real progress comes from taking action and applying them consistently in your own soccer journey. If you commit to this process, both on and off the pitch, you’ll not only get better at soccer, you’ll enjoy the game more than ever.

Frequently Asked Questions

What gear and equipment are needed to improve my soccer skills?

The best thing about soccer is that you don’t need a lot of equipment to start playing and improving. All you really need is a soccer ball, but the more serious you want to play, the more gear you will need, such as soccer cleats, shin guards, socks, shorts, and shirts, and soccer equipment, such as cones, rebounders, ball pumps, soccer bags, etc.

How do I improve my soccer skills?

To improve your soccer skills, focus on playing the game and its variations as much as possible while dedicating time to mastering fundamental skills like ball control, passing, shooting, dribbling, defending, etc. Combine regular team training with solo soccer drills, small-sided games, and learning from the feedback of coaches, teammates, and professional matches to speed up your progress and follow this guide to have a more comprehensive plan.

How often should I train to get better at soccer?

To improve at soccer, you always have to be “training,” which means you’re either improving technically, mentally, physically, or spiritually because everything you do on and off the field impacts your performance and recovery. Training with the ball should be done a minimum of 3-4 times a week and should include team practice sessions, unstructured play like pickup games or small-sided games, and individual skill work to develop your technical abilities and game understanding consistently over time.