Xavi Hernandez's First Touch

 Modern football is all about pressure. Whenever you receive the ball, there are always defenders charging you to snatch the ball away. Therefore, first touch is extremely important in football. A bad first touch will slow down the attack or even lose possession of the ball. A good first touch will keep the momentum of the attack while keeping possession of the ball.

 First touch is one of the hardest skills to master in football. It is not just about controlling the ball, but it is also about awareness. A good first touch means that you are aware of the situation going around you and be able to move the ball a few seconds earlier than the defenders. Since football nowadays is mostly about pressure, it is important to get rid of the pressure and move to space quickly as possible. This is why the importance of first touch is getting bigger than before.

 Xavi Hernandez is the master of first touch. He can control the ball very well even in a tight situation. Xavi is not the best dribbler nor the fastest player, because he does not need to be those kind of players. Just one or two touch, and he has the free space to look for a pass (his passes are extremely accurate as well). His awareness is amazing, and it is because he always looks around before receiving the pass. Therefore, he knows what to do before receiving the ball. This is extremely important as well, because most players(amateurs) panic after receiving the ball, and just lose the ball. If you know what you are going to do, than there is no reason to panic. Therefore, practicing your first touch and awareness can also increase your confidence in a match.

 Lastly, this is a video of some great touches and skills of Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez.

Play Simple Football. Part 2 : Passing

 Football is not an individual sport, it is a team sport. Therefore, once you have mastered control, now you need to know how to play with your teammates. In order to use your teammates, you need to know how to pass, but first understand that not every pass needs to be a killer pass. This is the part that I made a huge mistake on. Whenever I played football, I constantly told my teammates to make runs so that I can give the killer pass to them. This might work in a 5 aside game, but in a proper 11 aside match, it does not work all the time. You need to build up the play to get closer to the goal, and it is almost impossible to completely destroy the defence with one pass unless your Xavi Hernandez. Even Xavi Hernandez does not give killer passes to his teammates every time. He tries to build up the play first, and then when he sees the opportunity, he unleashes the killer pass.

 What I mean by 'build up' play is that you do not need to go forward every time. Sometimes you need to retreat backwards and then organize your play. Make sure your teammates are in the right position, and the team is on good shape to attack again. If you understand how to pass the ball like this, your team will be able to score goals easily against teams that never retreat. Therefore, you do not always need to look for the perfect pass, just pass the easy ball to your teammate, and slowly build up the play with possession. If you get used to this play, the pressure on you to make that 'good' pass will go away from you, and you will be able to play football with more confidence and intelligence.