How to Curve A Soccer Ball?

In this article you will learn how to curve a soccer ball, curving soccer ball in the air, how a beginner can curve a ball, different methods of curving soccer ball, and how professional players like Messi, Ronaldo, and Beckham curve the ball.

Curving a soccer ball while playing is a skillful technique and a source of making quick goals in a tricky and wise way. By excelling in this skill, you can achieve rapid fame and bring caps in soccer to your homeland if you play internationally. If you want to become a professional player like Ronaldo or Beckham and curve a soccer ball like them, this article will give you insight into how you can achieve it.

To achieve an intense bend in the path of your kick, you must kick the ball with a variable amount of spin. Practice with different powers of spices combined with the right amount of spin, and you’ll be able to raise the amusement level of spectators and make your opponents off guard, curving the ball around them.

How to Curve the Soccer Ball?

To curve a soccer ball required the master skills of handling the ball while kicking. When you want to curve the soccer ball to take advantage in-game, kick the ball on the low left or right side, depending on where you want it to spin, between the centers inside of your foot and laces to produce orthodoxies trajectory.

 Bringing your required leg across your body and locking its knuckle joint will add extra curve and power to the kick. Please keep an eye on the goalkeeper position when kicking and curving the ball to deceive him.

Keeps the ball on the ground pointing the inflation nozzle in the required direction of the curve? Hit the ball at a low point at a specific angle, pointing your foot toe upward. Proper follow-through, ball contact location, and power are essential elements to curve a soccer ball in the required direction to achieve positive results.

How to Curve A Soccer Ball Step by Step for Beginners?

More than a chip 

Is this a chip pass? Yes and no. The way I think of it is that a “chip” is more about the flight of the ball, and this ping technique that I’m about to describe is about the form and is used for longer distance passes and can be employed in a more lofted or ground-level manner.  

Key Points

You want to put a backspin on the ball. Once you’re able to do that, you can decide the optimal height of the pass with a couple of minor adjustments to your posture. Although it can be hard when you’re just learning a new technique, the number one focus here is to allow your body to relax as you’re striking the ball. You cannot apply this technique as well without fluidity. 

Okay, so to apply this much-needed backspin, your foot needs to strike down on the ball in a chopping motion. Consider these steps for optimal “ping” technique: 

1. Relax, and it’s going to be okay – no need to be so tense. 

2. Approach the ball at a side-on angle. This is vital as your foot won’t strike the ball properly if you approach head-on.  

3. Point your plant foot in the direction you want the ball to go 

4. Strike down and hit the middle of the ball with the knuckle area of your foot and resist a long follow through. Your ankle should be locked the whole way – if you find the ball curving inward, then chances are you are allowing your ankle to be too relaxed. Conversely, if you are slicing the ball, consider adding a little more follow through and make sure you are striking the ball in the dead center.

Like learning any new skill/technique, it will take practice, and you won’t be able to get it ideally on the first (or second or third) try. One thing that always helps me is just watching someone do it with proper technique over and over again. A strange form of osmosis allows the concept and proper technique to just seep into your body. If that sounds appealing to you, consider watching this gif with this beautiful Rocky Mountain backdrop for a bit. 

Free Kicks or Corners 

In free kicks and corners, the ball is stationary. This ball position makes it much easier to strike the ball because you have time to place yourself properly and then take your desired time on the run-up.

Whether you want to swing the ball into your co-players from a corner or set them up from a free-kick, the kicking skill is identical to a shot on goal by curving the soccer ball.

Step 1 – Run Up Position

By placing the ball down on the ground, you’ve to take a few steps back for a short run-up to the ball.

If you are going for a corner, your approach should be at an angle of approximately 45 degrees, as this will enable you to curve it into the box easily.

For a free-kick, you may approach at a somewhat greater angle depending on how much spin you want to put on the ball for sending it into the net or goalpost for a score.

Step 2 – Set Yourself Up to Kick the Ball

As you are ready to kick the ball, keep your stationary foot firmly next to the ball before making interaction; you need to aim the ball to gain stability.

Keeps your foot pointing slightly towards the direction you plan for the ball to go. If your leg and foot are in the wrong order, you will not get the desired result to spin the ball.

Practicing more and more will give you the distance accuracy for a shot.

Step 3 – Align Your Body

As you kick the ball, your stationary foot should be firmly placed next to the ball, and your body should be leaning slightly in the direction you want the ball to curve. To keep body balance, raise your arms to your sides to give you extra stability and power during the kick.

Step 4 – Kick the Ball

Strike the soccer ball with the inside of your foot. It would be best if you used the area of your foot that starts relatively below your big toe. Hit the ball with the location of your foot just close to the heel. Hitting on the toe won’t permit you the level of control you need to make a good curve. If you are a right-footed player and want to kick a soccer ball to the left, you may hit the lower right part of the ball to achieve a curve to the left. Kick the ball higher; you should kick lower on the ball.

Keep your non-striking foot still firmly planted on the ground; the rest of your body should move with your striking foot and kick the ball in the direction according to your game plan. 

Step 5 – Follow Through

Follow through with your leg in the direction of your kick to obtain better control. You will find that this feels more natural than stopping your kick once you’ve made interaction with the ball, anyhow. Practicing in this way, you will become pro at curving the ball in the required direction and will prove more beneficial to your team.

How to Curve A Soccer Ball Outside Foot?

Roberto Carlos made it art by kicking the ball on free kicks with the outside of the foot with his accurate and physics-defying shots that would curve around the ball with power and precision.

Curving a soccer ball with an outside foot is a more difficult skill to master than using the inside of your foot. However, no soccer player uses this outside-of-the-foot skill for corners, and we’ll focus merely on using this technique for free-kick situations.

Step 1 – How to Approach the Ball?

By using outside of your foot to curve the ball to overcome the defenders and goalkeeper of opponents, you must have some different course of action with the ball. Using the outside of your foot requires that you start your approach straight behind the ball, with the goal post lying directly in front of you.

Aim slightly to the side of the goalpost due to the expecting curve. This action will allow the ball to curve back if you kick it efficiently and correctly enough. 

To generate a lethal curve on the ball by using outside of your foot demands a lot of power, and you may want to extend your run-up to produce it efficiently.

Step 2 – Place Your Stationary Foot Accurately.

Like the first curve we talked about, planting your standing foot correctly next to the ball goes a long way to determine your accuracy.

But when you are planning to use them outside of your boot for a curve, you are required to keep your standing foot almost 1 foot behind the ball and slightly to the side.

By placing your foot too away from the ball, you’ll need to stretch your body for it, which will result in a loss of power and accuracy. If your standing foot is too close to the ball, it will likely block the path of your striking foot.

Step 3 – How to Strike the Ball

Get ready now you’ve completed your run-up and planted your standing foot to strike the ball.

Run straight to the ball and kick with the outside of your foot. While marking slightly for the outside of your target, knowing you are curving the ball.

The best point to strike the ball is with the spot on your foot right behind your smallest toe. Your striking foot will come across your body, and the ball will produce a curve.

Suppose you’re kicking the ball with your right foot; aim on the bottom left of the ball for interaction or at its center.

Step 4: Follow Through 

To acquire as much curve as thinkable, let your striking leg naturally follow through once you’ve hit the ball. If you are using your right foot to kick the ball and have correctly connected with the outside of it, your leg should move to the left and rise up slightly in front of you, and your left arm will automatically come down to give you more power.

How to Make A Soccer Ball Curve in The Air?

According to experts that soccer players feel easy to curve the rough or old ball in the air than a smooth and new ball. With longer seams, a rough ball is more expected to mid-air steering.

The study reveals that the flow of air around the ball is complicated, and actually, they depend on how much the ball is rough. Professor of applied mathematics, John Bush, says in a report; if the ball is smooth, it will curve in the wrong way.”. 

As a Soccer player, you will get a spin or curve on the ball mid-air that comes from your right foot brushing toward the outside of the ball, creating a right-to-left hook, and in the case of left foot, making a left-to-right bend.

Soccer players often curve the ball in the air during free kicks, corner kicks, and crosses due to their field playing position. That spin or curve in mid-air can be is known as the “Magnus Effect.

. According to John Bush, the rough ball creates more Magnus effect in the air than the smoother one and can be easily curved in the required direction. The surface of the rough ball makes a motion at the boundary layer between the spinning ball and the air. 

He explains that the irregular motion of a fluttering free-kick arises because the points of boundary-layer transition are different on opposite sides of the ball. This effect helps the soccer player to curve the ball in the air.

How to Curve A Soccer Ball in A Corner Kick?

Scoring a goal on a corner kick is extremely rare and challenging, known as the Olympic goal. Scoring a goal from a corner kick is difficult because both goalkeeper and defense players block the corner shot. It would be best if you had “bend,” or curved the ball into the goalpost to score a goal through a corner kick.

The first thing is to keep in mind when you are shooting this corner kick is the wind speed, direction, and force of air resistance. So, when you kick the ball, you have to do so a few yards away from the goal into the 18-yard box as the force of air resistance will push the ball towards the goal.

 You also need to swerve on the ball because Bernoulli’s principle states that air velocity increases when the air pressure decreases. Thus, that reduced pressure on the side of the ball and increased air velocity causes the ball to curve towards the desired direction. The swerve which generates the ball bending is also known as the Magnus effect, and it is the Magnus effect that leads the ball to not move in a straight path and forces the ball to curve into the air for scoring a goal. 

If you kick the ball in the wrong position, it will not curve inwards enough, move too much in the straight direction, or curve too much and miss the goal. The order of your foot and the location where you kick the ball is significant in enhancing the Magnus effect. Always keep in mind; if you want to curve the ball to the left, you should kick the ball from the right side of the ball and vice versa.

Place the ball on the ground and then take a running start. Kick the ball on the bottom right side for an in-swinging ball. Place your planting foot at a 45-degree angle in the direction of the ball. You want to interact with the ball from behind your big toe on the outside of your foot. When you complete the kick, retain your ankle in the locked position and swing your hips with your striking leg around your body, so it goes over the opposite leg. If you want to curve the ball away from the goalkeeper, you’ll need to hit the ball in the bottom left corner. This is all about for a person kicking with their right foot.

How to Curve A Soccer Ball Like Messi?

Messi’s ability to curve a soccer ball into the desired direction is a perfect example of creativity. This is the unmatched skill of soccer star Messi because it is incredible to do without thinking about it, completely different from any other player.

You can train yourself and learn how to curve your soccer ball like Messi by following and practicing these simple steps. Enough practice will give you the ability of goal scoring like Messi by curving the soccer ball.

You will come to know the four steps secret of Messi that you can follow to rapidly get better at curving the ball into the top corner.

Step1 – Your Visual Image

At first, make sure that you have to scan the goalpost and you’re positioning. You can produce a visual image of the situation in your head while taking your run-up. As you take run-up for kicking the ball, you’re going to be looking at the ball, not at the goal post. At this stage, you will use a scanned image of the goalpost saved in your head.

Step 2 – Your Run-Up Angle

It’s important to stand at about an angle of 45 degrees with the ball to get the right direction to hit the top corner—no need to stand too wide or narrow to the ball. Just 45 degrees angle should give you enough space to get that curl around.

Step 3- Ball Connection

According to Messi style, in this step, you should use the top of your inside sole to help you produce power with less effort. The area of the ball that you touch with your foot is very critical. You’re going to give your foot an angle of 45 degrees upwards to give the ball a little lift, but not too much, just enough to dip over the wall and back down before reaching the goalpost.

Step 4 – Your Follow Through

Follow-through is very important for achieving accuracy to curve the ball. After you’ve kicked the ball, follow through with your kicking foot, slightly lifting it forward and curling it around your other leg to maintain balance. Follow-through will also reinforce the curve on the ball. These are the four steps that Messi used to curveball for scoring a goal.

How to Curve A Soccer Ball Like Ronaldo?

Cristiano Ronaldo is a famous soccer player for his free kicks and for the knuckleball-style dip effect he develops while taking corners and free kicks. To obtain the Cristiano Ronaldo Free Kick standards, you need to learn to put a minimal spin on the ball, which produces a zigzag trajectory along its straight path. The ball deviates latterly by roughly the diameter of the ball.

Step 1 

Cristiano Ronaldo always places the ball on the ground valve facing towards him. That is optional, although it may give the ball a better flight movement in the air.

Step 2  

Make a run-up of five steps back to the left at the required angle if you’re right-footed or to the right if you’re left-footed, then take one and a half steps to the opposite side to your run up area. Keep your arms straight down and extend your legs very wide, more than shoulder-width. Now take a deep breath.

 Step 3 

His free-kicks tend to go up high very swiftly, seeming to shatter off his foot. This obtains from the quick and short follow-through just after kicking the ball. If you do it correctly, the ball will arc up then dip back down quickly, or go on a zigzag path according to the power put in with the follow-through.

 Step 4 

You are required to interact on the ball in the area between your shoelaces and your instep. Aim the nozzle valve you have placed facing toward you at the beginning of the kick.

You need to avoid putting any spin on the ball to give it the knuckle-ball effect. Take care to hit the ball just below the middle but not too low so that it doesn’t take a backspin. It is essential to avoid rolling off your foot at all.

Step 5 

Follow-through is an essential part of the kick. Complete your Follow-through action by pointing your kicking foot where you want the ball to go, pivoting around toward your target, and keeping your plant foot off the ground and up into the air. Now carry your kicking knee straight up instead of the more traditional follow-through in which you will end up to the side.

Keep in your Imagination that you wanted to make the knee of your kicking foot touch your chin after completing the action. Your kicking foot should hit the ground first if you perform it correctly, now stay back and watch your knuckle ball success.

How to Curve A Soccer Ball Like Beckham?

When you reach Beckham’s ability to curve the soccer ball in the air, the phrase “bend it like the Beckham” explains his skills.

The Approach to the Ball.

 The first thing to keep in your mind t to make sure you have a good posture. If you are right-footed, you want to be facing angled slightly to the right at about 45 degrees of where you want the ball to go; then, you should be running from the left side of the ball. If you are ‘left-footed,’ then do the opposite.

If you will take this shot as a free kick, make sure to take a run-up of about three steps to get to the ball. More distance than that may cause you to overshoot your desired target.

 It is necessary to kick the ball with the very bottom of your big toe, striking the ball on the lowest corner (right foot = bottom right corner and vice versa in case of left foot). By doing this correctly, the amount of bend put on the ball depends on two things: the motion of your kick swing and the power behind the kick.

 Kicking Motion

 as you plant your rear foot before the kick, you want to ensure that you are still facing somewhat wide of your target. Don’t permit your planted foot to spin as you swing your power leg. Try to kick from your hip and use your upper portion to induce the power, always kicking through the ball.

 Upon striking the ball, begin to curve the swinging leg in the direction that you want the ball to bend. As you do this, curve your foot slightly in the same direction, and the ball will roll a little further up your foot. Your leg will follow an arcing path toward the goalpost. Follow-through is very important because concentrate on your front -swing through the ball. 

Kicking Power

The power with which you hit the ball and the quantum of spin produced are equally related. In other words, the ball will go in straightway as harder you kick it. Chipping the shot will generate maximum bend than a bullet shot can. Once you have done that, you can change the speed of the kick as required.

 How to Curve A Soccer Ball While Moving?

Curving a stationary ball is too difficult to master, and achieving your delivery or shooting technique on a moving objective is much more challenging.

But, continuity of practice and constant repetition of that action gives you the master command on it during play. Here are some tips to keep in mind for curving the ball while moving.

Step 1 – Look About Your Surroundings 

First of all thing, you must be aware of what’s at this time going on around you. Do you going to attempt a cross or shot, and is there any space to do it?

If you do not find space, can you take a touch to gain yourself slightly extra distance to make it materialize?

At times it’s better to keep things simple rather than taking the risk of losing the ball to the opponents in a promising area of the ground. Perfection of time is a significant factor in executing this shot.

Step 2 – Look Up and Choose Your Target

If you have found a chance to put in a cross, look up quickly and search where your co-players will be and how much power and bend you should put into striking the ball.

There is a time shortage to think about the situation in the heat of the match, but it goes a long way to confirming your kick will result in a goal-scoring chance. Once you find where to place it, shift your attention to the ball and focus on the strike.

Step 3 – Striking the Ball While Running

Whenever you are running along the touchline with the ball ahead of you or during dribbling and passing the opponent’s full-back, sometimes you have no other choice than to put in a cross while on the run.

In this situation, the best option is to slow down a little if possible, as this will help increase the accuracy of your cross of shot on goal. Place your standing foot a little behind the ball, then wrap your foot around it so that the ball will be bend away from the keeper.

Step 4 – Power and Accuracy

If you observe that shooting time does arrive, you need to decide whether to kick the ball with all the power you can gather or whether you should lose some strength and sensitivity past the ball to the goalpost by deceiving the keeper.

When you Curve the ball accurately to place it around the keeper, but if you fail to hit it hard enough, it may result in a distressing attempt that ends up in the keeper’s arms.

Due to this, players will often opt for a combination of power and accuracy before smashing the ball, which will end up in the back of the net.

Conclusion

If you want to know how to bend the soccer ball like a pro, this is easy to achieve, but you need to focus on the methods with regular and continuous practice. Turning a soccer ball with power is also the result of repeated training and effective playing with your left and right feet. Once you fully control the shots from different angels and map them to your mind, no one can beat you, and it will be difficult for others to reach your level of professionalism in curving a soccer ball.

So, this was all about how to bend the soccer ball. I hope so that you enjoyed it. Let me know in the comments about your experiences and,

” How do you curve a soccer ball? “

Thanks!