Female highschool player looking for advice

Watch Hajime No Ippo. One episode every day. The first season is dubbed, the second and third and specials are sub only. At the end of every episode, go for a run. This will make running your lifestyle, which will benefit you for the rest of your life. Push yourself, but make it recovery runs or loosen-up runs if needed. Take care of your body, you have to live with it past high school.

This header drill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eFt5pqeE9M

Juggle everyday for thirty minutes. No exceptions. If it's raining, if it's pitch-black, if you're friends are with you and looking at you like you're crazy - you're still practicing.

Volley the ball over the back of the goal, sprint to it, find it by it's second bounce, bring it down under control, and finish. Works on your sprints which will is very helpful for a defender. Do more sprints in general. Learn proper sprinting with the hips tilted forward.

Line up on the goal line and shoot into the net, over and over. Back off and practice PK's at full distance. Every team needs a finisher in those clutch PK/free-kick moments. Have a friend record you, not just this drill, but all the time.

Learn to practice passing under pressure, and inside your goal box. Work on your passes, including chip passes. Let your strikers and wing's use you for live practice.

Work on finding your positioning not just when defending, but when your team-mates need a player forward or a negative pass. As an attacking Mid, nothing makes me feel better then when I have a strong defender behind me who I can turn and pass too when things get hairy. Become a support defender. Become a complete defender.

Learn the game at a more strategic level, find matches to watch and analyze players and what they do. You mentioned watching USWNT matches and that's great, I recommend Allie Long for learning the positioning of a strong Defensive Midfielder which will have big applicability to the previous point of learning to be a support defender.

Stop with this mindset of making it onto one of your three teams, you are going to make the top team. You are going to develop yourself into a physically superior, and technically superior, soccer athlete. This goes back to my very first point, pay attention and begin building the mindset of a Champion, and realize you are both responsible for your own hype, and your own success. Put in the hard work, but make it so people want to come see you. Advertise yourself and your team. Make the soccer games a spectacle. Plaster posters all over the school, and even town, without asking, whatever else you can come up with.

If you have a college near you, call up the coach and ask about practicing in with their teams. Same with rec adult leagues, most don't practice, some might. Try and find those and see about playing with them. The League Commissioner would be the best person to start with contacting.

You have the entire internet in front of you to find drills. Don't look for perfect drills, find the first three, do them, write them down (in that order). Come back, do it again, and you'll end up with training sheets of training sheets that you can then mix and match for more variety. Keep a simple training journal.

Carli Lloyd, my personal favorite player, has a saying you need to make your mantra for practices and games, 'Empty the tank, every time'.

Love Soccer.

/r/bootroom Thread