Since I was four soccer was my favorite sport. For years I remember traveling as close as 1 hour to as far was 10 hours for soccer games. I played year round till junior year in high school. I was lucky to to have soccer come naturally for me. but also doing years and years of travel soccer also helped as well. I realized though I was more dominant in my left right foot. I took goal kicks with my root foot, direct kicks, and I usually cut the ball back to my right side to kick it. I noticed this sophomore year in high school. Now some people would say this is totally fine, your great with your right foot at least you have one super great side make sure you have the ball handled with that foot. Instead of just leaving it at that I decided to take more chances with the left side. During practice I would dribble more with my left foot, cutting the ball with my left foot and taking shots with left foot. The results: HORRIBLE. What I could have done was admit that I was terrible with my left foot leave it at that. I knew that if I wanted to be better than a great soccer player and to be noticed more I was going to have to continue to practice with my left foot.
The next phase was incorporating my left foot in games. I starting dribbling with my left foot and cutting the ball with my left foot. The success was better but I wasn’t where I wanted to be. My coaches gave me feedback reminding me either to lean over the ball more or bend back depending where I was on the field. I struggled a lot with my left foot because it didn’t come naturally. I think for me it took a year until I felt truly comfortable with my left foot. During my senior year I think I ended up taking more shots on my left than on my right.
