How to Make a Soccer Ball Curve

To practice making a soccer ball curve, try the off center contact and sideways foot movement demonstrated by your coach. Explore the intended ball route with a starting gate and a separate finishing target. Use how to curve a soccer ball alongside the starting gate exercise below to organize observations you can discuss with your coach. The Giro X sells Curl Master One for contact and spin control practice between coaching sessions.

Where Should Your Foot Contact the Ball?
How Should You Approach and Follow Through?
What Should You Observe Before Changing Swing Speed?
How Can You Practice a Curve With Both Feet?
Why Get Curl Master One Alongside Coaching?

Where Should Your Foot Contact the Ball?

For an inside foot curve, try rehearsing contact beside the ball’s center with your coach, allowing the striking surface to move across the ball as demonstrated. The inside means the inner surface of your foot, rather than the laces on top. Ask your coach to show the contact point together with the foot’s movement before attempting the rehearsal. During practice, describe whether you recognized the demonstrated contact rather than assuming that touching a particular spot guarantees the intended curve.

For the usual sideways curve, the intended bend is left with the right inside foot and right with the left inside foot, viewed from behind the kicker. Outside foot contact aims for the reverse: right with the right foot and left with the left foot. These directions follow the relationship between spin and sideways force modeled by Ken Bray and David Davies (Sports Engineering, 2003); their flight model does not prove a contact drill effective. Opinion: I would settle on an intended bend direction before experimenting with a different striking surface.

How Should You Approach and Follow Through?

Try a slow approach rehearsal using the position your coach demonstrates for the intended curve. Your plant foot is the supporting foot beside the ball, and its intended position belongs in that demonstration. Before adding a strike, identify where you expect the supporting foot to land and where you want the ball to start. An angled approach can be a practice option to explore with your coach; no fixed approach angle is prescribed for this suggested rehearsal.

For the follow through in soccer curve practice, I would observe the kicking leg’s movement after contact without aiming for an exaggerated finishing pose. Keep the question connected to the strike: did the foot present the surface you intended, and where did the ball begin traveling? A coach can examine that movement alongside your approach. Ask your coach whether the contact cue should stay the same before changing the approach and follow through together, so the next rehearsal has a defined purpose.

What Should You Observe Before Changing Swing Speed?

Before changing swing speed, I would record the ball’s starting direction and finishing position while keeping the gate and target fixed. Spin can make airflow differ around opposite sides of a moving ball, producing a sideways push called the Magnus effect. In their soccer flight model, Ken Bray and David Davies describe how spin and forward speed influence that force (Sports Engineering, 2003). More sidespin can increase the sideways push under comparable conditions, but a faster ball also reaches a fixed target sooner, leaving less time to move sideways. Their model does not establish a universal speed or coaching correction.

For a comparison during curve practice, try keeping the starting gate and finishing target in place while exploring a swing adjustment agreed with your coach. Describe the route of each strike without treating a single attempt as proof of a technique rule. If you want to examine the other foot, ask your coach to confirm the intended route before adapting the setup. My preference is to leave the practice session with an observation about contact that I can discuss at the next lesson.

How Can You Practice a Curve With Both Feet?

Try a starting gate exercise to observe the ball’s initial direction separately from its later sideways movement. Mark the gate with cones beyond a stationary ball, then place a cone obstacle farther along the line through the gate’s center. For a leftward curve, place the finishing target beyond and left of the obstacle; reverse the target position for a rightward curve. With a manageable swing and your coach’s contact cue, aim through the gate and around the intended side of the obstacle. Observe whether the ball clears the gate, passes the obstacle and finishes near the target, without assuming the setup guarantees a curve.

As a rehearsal suggestion, mirror the setup when switching from right inside foot to left inside foot: keep the ball and obstacle fixed, reflect the gate across the line from ball to obstacle, and move the target to the opposite side. Mirror the arrangement again when changing between inside and outside contact with the same foot. For girls’ and boys’ soccer players in California, Texas, Florida and New York, I would keep the practice question specific to the individual player’s coaching cue. Record the intended surface and observed route for each foot, then discuss straight shots with your coach.

Why Get Curl Master One Alongside Coaching?

Get Curl Master One to give contact and spin control practice a place between coaching sessions. Curl Master One spins a standard ball at controlled speeds and trains contact and spin control. My suggestion is to connect Curl Master One practice to a striking surface discussed with your coach, then observe the ball’s starting direction during separate field practice. Try using the starting gate to examine flight while rehearsing the coach’s chosen contact cue during home practice.

Curl Master One

Spins a standard ball at controlled speeds for contact and spin control practice. No app or subscription is required.

Opinion: I would buy Curl Master One to rehearse the contact cue my coach recommends between field sessions. Try carrying the coach’s contact cue from Curl Master One practice into the next starting gate session, then observe whether the ball begins through the intended opening before moving toward the finishing target. Keep the gate fixed while observing the route, and record each foot separately. Bring those observations to your coach before choosing the next contact adjustment.

Practice With Curl Master One

Curl Master One spins a standard ball at controlled speeds for contact and spin control practice.

Buy Now