This is a video of 7 year old Mayeli. She is allowed to practice inside her home during the Winter. She understands that she is only allowed to dribble the ball indoors. As a result, her dribbling has improved tremendously. In other countries, the kids get out of school and go outside to play with their friends, every single day, it’s what Ronaldo, Messi, and Van Persie did, so in order for us to keep up, we have to train indoors.

Dribbling indoors can help train youth soccer players, from the Toddler to the U18 player. Here are a few tricks to training indoors.

1. I recommend that you visit YouTube and search for a few easy dribbling lessons for your child. Notice the word EASY, nothing too fancy.

2. Introduce one or two to your child and let them decide which one they like and which one they want to learn.

3. Supervise them and encourage them to get better at it. I do this by acting like I get faked out. For example the “Pull Back” move, she holds the ball and I go after it, she pulls it back and is excited to know that I missed the ball completely and she “faked me out”. This is a great way to spend time with your child and they are practicing without even knowing it.

4. If you see the move being done in a professional game or during a match by older players, point that out and get excited, your son or daughter will want to see that same reaction from you when they do it.

You can do this with any skill. Your kids love spending time with you and they enjoy encouragement from their parents and coaches. They seek that approval from their elders. None of this costs any money. Anyone can do this. That’s why I say that you don’t need a special trainer or a special camp, you need to get involved with your children! Mayeli is using a Futsal ball for indoors so it’s smaller in size and has a lower bounce. You can get your own at soccer.com or click on the sidebar.

Here is another video that you may like

Let me know if you have additional suggestions or what has worked for you in the past. Leave a comment below or send me an email Thanks for reading.