Q&A for How to Dribble a Soccer Ball Past an Opponent

You can practice at home by kicking the ball against a wall. When it bounces back, practice controlling and dribbling the ball.

Dribble the ball close to your foot, giving it small nudges so that it is never more than 30cm away from you. When you do this, you can gain speed without loosing control of the ball. To keep it consistent, just keep practicing. The more you do this, the better you will become at it.

Watch videos of foot skills/drills and apply them in the game. Try sliding the ball directly to your right or left about 3 - 4 feet, then dribble as fast as you can past them and take your shot on the goal.

Use your body to physically and legally push the opposing player off the ball. Make sure that you do this after you have touched the ball.

Yes, it is. Dribbling is basically running with the ball, and it's a big part of how the ball moves around the field throughout my game. You need good control of the ball when dribbling to make sure you don't lose possession of it though.

It is good to learn all the tricks, but try and stick with at least three until you are familiar with them. Then, try some other techniques.

You can refer to this article: How to Slide Tackle in Soccer .

It's a flashy move that is terrible to use in a game. Just move quickly at the opponent and drop your shoulder to, say, the left, then very quickly touch the ball with the outside of your right and accelerate away.

As a beginner it may be easiest to think of a move beforehand. However, the most talented and experienced people will be able to read the player's body movements and spontaneously use a move to get by what is being played.

You don't really need to dribble with two balls, but if you really want to do it, just use your right foot for another ball and your left foot for another.

Improve how you do your body feint. The defender won't fall for the body feint if you do it too early. So, try to do it when you are as close as possible to the defender, this makes it unpredictable and you'll have a higher chance of doing a successful body feint. (This applies when you change direction too.) Even after this, if the defender doesn't fall for it and you lose the ball, then the first thing you have to do is recover that ball by fighting for it.

Just practice footwork, and maybe do some tricks as well. If you find that you can't get past them, pass it to someone else before they get the ball.

Faking or juking will help you get around the defense. Be quick and don’t take too long to fake them out, or the defense will crowd around you and you’ll likely lose the ball.

When you do the Cruyff, you can first fake a shot. Right before you hit te ball, push it behind your opposite leg. Look at video examples online to help you gain a better understanding.

Keep the ball in control and work on your speed. Pass to your teammates when they are open.

Pass it to another teammate and set up for the pass. Or use skills to go through them.