Monday, April 23, 2007

Soccer Indirect Shot

Beauty Play

This Johan-Cruyff indirect shot technique might only work once, but it's ingenious.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now I do not know a thing about this game but looks like it would work a lot. Won't that goalie have to come out to defend that ever time?

Rodger the Real King of France said...

After watching 6,973 youth and high school soccer games - a sport I knew nothing about - here's my guess. No. It ought just work once, especially at that level.

The goalie comes out to cut down the angle of available shots, not steal the ball, so that's not the key. The defense is to mark the player who snuck in for that back-door pass. I will prolly be corrected, but if I coached kids soccer, that would be in my repertoire.

Anonymous said...

It looks to be an indirect free kick. A direct free kick would have a wall of defenders, and a penalty kick would end as soon as another player touched the ball.

The trick here was to catch the defense by surprise by putting the ball into play quickly, with a second player running in. The keeper has to come out to defend the second player, who passes the ball back for a wide-open shot.

No, it wouldn't work every time. It will work against a team full of lazy players who are slow to get themselves set up. Believe it or not, the top ranks of professional soccer have plenty of players who routinely show up half an hour late for practice and drag themselves around like rebellious teenagers. That's how they show how important they are.

This play has Cruyff taking that attitude and punking it completely. Utter pwnage.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

I yield to that guy ...

Anonymous said...

Me to Rodger

BlogDog said...

I saw Cruyff play with the late Washington Diplomats back in the late 70s (I think) and he was amazing. His footwork and ball control (watch it!) were the best I've ever personally witnessed.

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