How to Juggle a Soccer Ball

Juggling a soccer ball brings you various benefits besides it being fun. For example, you strengthen your legs and improve your balance and motor coordination, among many other things, when juggling. And you only need a few minutes a day if you don’t have more time to practice and perfect this skill.

That being said, read our 5-Minute Crafts quick guide about how to learn to juggle a soccer ball.

1. Practice with your feet.

To juggle a soccer ball with your feet with precision, use your toe box, just below your sneakers’ laces. Otherwise, you’ll hit the ball too hard or too inaccurately. Start juggling with your feet by doing the following.

1. Drop the ball with your hands and kick it back with your right or left foot once to catch it. Repeat the process as many times as needed until you keep delivering the ball right into your hands consistently. Then switch the foot and repeat the process.
2. Start juggling twice with one foot before delivering it right into your hands. Keep doing so until you achieve consistency. After that, switch the foot and repeat.
3. Kick the ball with one foot to deliver it to the other. Then kick it back to your hands and catch it. Reverse the order whenever you feel confident enough.

Once you are ready, start juggling multiple times and alternate feet, whatever the practice stage.

2. Use your thighs.

Once you master juggling the soccer ball with your feet, your thighs are next. And to do it right, you need to use the top part of your thigh, away from your knee. If you kick the ball with your knee, you won’t have control because the knee is harder than the thigh. The result would be the same if you disturb your balance while juggling.

The thigh practice drill goes like this:

1. Start by raising one leg and bending it at your knee to form a 90-degree angle. Then drop the ball with your hands to the thigh and bounce it back to catch it. Switch the thigh and repeat the process once you start doing that consistently.
2. Next, juggle the ball with one thigh twice before catching it with your hands. Continue doing so until you achieve consistency. After that, switch the thigh and repeat.
3. The next step is dropping the ball with your hands and bouncing it once from one thigh to another before delivering it to your hands. Keep alternating until you manage to do it consistently.

Juggle multiple times whenever you feel you’re ready, no matter the current stage.

Note: If the ball doesn’t bounce right into your hands, you might want to kick it with more force than necessary.

3. Juggle the ball with your head.

Practicing juggling the ball with your head requires a different approach because it’s more difficult than juggling with the feet and thighs. And you need to use your forehead to juggle with precision. Otherwise, the soccer ball is likely to go where you don’t want it to go.

And it goes like this:

1. Lie down and drop the ball toward your forehead from a few inches (around 10 cm) in height. Progress by lifting your head from the ground and putting something soft underneath it. Then drop the ball from a slightly further height. Keep practicing until you juggle with consistency.
2. Next, kneel and have someone across from you do the same. Let your assistant toss the ball near your head. If you can’t find an assistant, try tossing the ball a bit higher. Use a snapping movement with your neck to meet the ball with your forehead and deliver it to your assistant or hands. Continue until you achieve consistency.
3. Finally, stand up and toss the ball in the air. Use the same neck-snapping motion you did while kneeling to meet the soccer ball with your forehead. When you perfect this practice, it’s time to bounce the ball between your forehead and a wall or fence.

Try juggling multiple times whenever you start feeling confident.