Developing soccer skills: moving with the ball

"We all universally come to the game of soccer because we love playing with the ball,” says Moritz Kossman.

“We all want to touch the ball and there’s a certain magic to that. That magic needs to be encouraged at every level. 

"I think moving with the ball is the most basic and pure form of that.”

Moritz is a coach at Ubuntu Football Academy in Cape Town, where he coaches the U21s, who play in the third tier of South African football, and oversees the senior section, made up of U18s and U16s.

He lends his expertise on moving with the ball, covering what it is, the techniques and the building blocks for players learning the skill…

SCW: What are the main differences between running with the ball and dribbling?

MK: When I, as a player, have the ball on the field, you could refer to any action - while I still have the ball - as ’protecting the ball’.

But running with the ball would be in situations where there is less, or no, opponent pressure.

An example of that would be a central defender receiving the ball and they have a large amount of space in front of them, because the opponent is playing in a low or mid-block or something like that.

They might want to carry the ball towards that block to provoke pressure. This we could refer to as ’running with the ball’.

When most people imagine dribbling, it has got a characteristic of a slalom action to it, where you might be trying to go around or through the gaps of several opponents - and it involves more changes of direction.

Running with the ball might happen more in straight lines because I actually want to cover a larger amount of ground in a shorter time, whereas dribbling has a more, perhaps, evasive aspect to it.

SCW: What are the techniques needed for running with the ball and for dribbling?

MK: Any person can run faster without the ball at their feet. So if I’m trying to run with the ball and cover a large amount of ground against little opponent pressure, I’m going to take less touches on the ball.

I’m going to push the ball ahead of me and attempt to run quite quickly behind it, in order to cover a large amount of ground in a short time. Whereas, if I’m trying to evade and beat opponents, I’m going to take many touches because I’m going to have to change direction. I’m also going to have to react quickly to attempts to win the ball off me.

The higher frequency of touches makes it much more possible to change direction, rather than if I’m running with the ball and just attempting to cover ground very quickly. 

Then, I need a lower frequency of touches, because, naturally, I can run faster without the ball at my foot.