Still, this doesn’t mean that it’s too late to learn how to play the game. That leaves us with one question: Is it hard to learn soccer?

Soccer is easy to learn the basics of. If you just want to have fun and kick the ball around, you can be set to go in a matter of hours.

Being able to compete on a professional level takes much more. Mastering soccer and being able to understand the advanced intricacies of the game is very hard and takes a lifetime of dedication to the game.

Some people are just naturals at sports and can pick up a ball and just run circles around anyone on the field. Others take years of practice to even grasp the basics.

The majority of beginner soccer players, however, are somewhere between those two extremes. This article is dedicated to them and the ways in which an average soccer beginner can improve their game quickly.

How long does it take to learn soccer?

Becoming technically good at soccer can be a task that takes years. That’s why most players are first introduced to soccer as kids, at the age of 8 or even earlier.

Even after starting this early in life, soccer players need around 10 years of regular practice and play to reach an advanced level of knowledge and technical ability. Generally speaking, those who start older have a much smaller chance of reaching the professional level of play. 

Learning the basics of soccer, on the other hand, is not a difficult task. This is why players are able to start so young, as the rules and basic techniques of the game are fairly easy to understand.

Here’s where older beginners have an advantage; their initial progress is much quicker.

A beginner player can have the basics of soccer nailed down in a matter of weeks and be ready to play and enjoy soccer confidently.

While getting really good at soccer can take an entire decade, even the most average of players can learn the basics in less than a month.

This leaves us with the question of how to achieve this. That’s what we dedicate the next chapter of this article to:

How can you learn soccer fast?

Getting better at a sport takes a lot of time and dedication. Doing so in a month, as mentioned in the previous chapter, can be even more challenging.

However, there are some simple rules and tips new soccer players, or those aiming to improve their game, can follow to get better at soccer fairly quickly. Here’s a short step-by-step guide on how you can learn soccer fast:

1. Build essential skills:

Building some of the essential skills is the key to fast soccer progression. Remember that scoring a goal is the end product of numerous skill and work-demanding maneuvers and hours of practice.

Here are some of those skills, as well as the ways you can improve them:

• Dribbling is one of the main elements of soccer. It ensures that your team holds on to the ball and maybe even scores a goal. However, delicately kicking the ball to an opposing net is not something that comes naturally, but rather a thing that requires an hour of training. To improve your dribble quickly, practice guiding the ball between some cones at various speeds. Once you get the hang of it, switch from your dominant foot, and practice some more.
• Passing is another essential soccer element. Placing the ball directly in front of your teammate’s feet when they’re moving is not an easy thing to do. The anticipation of where to place the ball, as well as the precision to do so, comes with practice. It’s best to have a friend in the field and practice with them to improve this skill quickly.
• Shooting is what most of us play soccer for. There’s no feeling that matches scoring a gall in a match, but it takes a lot of practice to be able to do so. Kicking the ball against the wall while trying to hit a specific spot every time is a great way to get started on shooting practice.
• Defending is an essential skill that soccer beginners, especially older ones, tend to neglect. Make no mistake; you’ll need to know how to defend, regardless of your position on the field. Keeping your eyes on the ball, being aware of opponents’ positions, and knowing when to tackle are all part of the soccer defense. This is another aspect of the game where a buddy system comes in handy for practices.

2. Understand the written and unwritten rules of soccer:

Just like every sport out there, soccer has a long list of rules that need to be followed in order for the game to work.

Being familiar with these rules is another essential element in becoming a better player, especially if you want to do it quickly. Here are some of the key ones you should pay attention to:

• No hands can be used in the game of soccer, so make sure to practice doing everything with your feet and pay special attention to dribble practices.
• Offside is one of the most confusing concepts for soccer newcomers. According to the rules, the attacker can’t have any parts of their body that they can score with closer to the opponent’s goal line than both the ball and the second-last defender.
• Recognizing your position is not a strict rule, but it helps. Keepers, defenders, midfielders, and attackers all have different rules to worry about. For example, a goalkeeper rarely has to worry about being offside. Attackers and midfielders, on the other hand, need to have the rules engraved into their brains.

3. Advance your skills further:

When you feel like you’ve had enough practice and like you understand the rules, you’ve managed to learn the basics of soccer.

Now, the time for advanced practice has arrived. Here’s how you can quickly improve your skills even further:

• Make every practice session count by not slacking off. You can rest once the practice is over. Soccer requires dedication, and fast learning requires even more of it.
• Ensure that you push yourself a bit further every practice session. Did you do 10 drills in the previous practice? In the next session, your goal is to go for 12.
• Invest in proper gear. Finding the right cleats, the perfect ball, and proper training equipment, as well as researching and being knowledgeable about them, are all part of the game. Sometimes, the only thing holding us back can be the blisters we get from wearing bad socks.

How many hours a day should you practice soccer?

There’s a piece of trivia that’s been circling the internet for years now and it says that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill.

Investing 10,000 hours into a skill, according to the theory, is the key to success, and it can also be applied to soccer, to an extent.

If you think that you’ve invested this amount of time already, let’s put it into perspective: A total practice time of 10,000 hours equals 5 years’ worth of full-time dedication to soccer.

This would mean that we should forget about work and social life, and turn soccer into the thing we do for 40 hours every week.

It would also mean that an average player, who practices three times a week for one and a half hours and plays one game each week, has invested around 4,000 hours between the ages of 6 and 18.

This is an unrealistic amount of time to dedicate to a hobby, so let’s be more realistic: Practicing soccer for 20 hours a week is more than enough to make a talented beginner into a world-class player in no less than 10 years.

This is also the amount of practice time that soccer experts recommend for new players: Practicing for two-three hours per day, with a few rest days scattered throughout the week, is more than enough to advance their skills.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that all of us will become the next Messi, even if we had the free time to dedicate to the sport.

Players who want to become better at soccer should practice for a few hours every day, ensuring that their practice sessions are effective.

Running around the field aimlessly for hours isn’t likely to lead to improvement.

All in all, learning soccer isn’t hard. As with everything else in life, mastering it requires years of sweat and tears.

We hope that this brief article taught you something new, and maybe even provided some help on your road to success in the game.

The sport has obviously evolved since then, developing strict rules (ones that are open to change, as with any sport), but the passion of the fans remains the same.

As it’s charmed so many people in the world, it’s only logical that everyone wants to play the sport, be it professionally or on an amateur level. So, the next logical question remains: how long does it take to get good at soccer?

To become good enough for the top professional level at soccer takes a literal lifetime, to get good enough for an amateur level takes far less, but still requires a lot of practice and physical above-average physical capabilities.

There are vast differences that must be taken into account when discussing skill development, and it doesn’t matter what skill’s in question, it applies to soccer just as well.

The sports system in which you’re developing, your general attitude towards the project, and proper development will all take a percentage of importance in becoming good at soccer.

In this article, you’ll learn is hard to learn to play soccer, how long does it take to get good at it, how many hours a day should you practice, and (for those that have witnessed a significant stagnation in their progress) why aren’t you getting better at soccer.

Is It Hard To Learn Soccer?

To put it out plainly – yes. If you want to be truly good at it, then no sport is easy to master.

It doesn’t really matter whether you’re aiming for professional levels or pinging the ball around the cage with your buddies, getting good at soccer is not easy.

Obviously, talent plays a massive role in this. Naturally talented people already possess a certain skill developed to a certain level – naturally talented soccer players are naturally good at soccer to a certain degree, and they also possess the natural instinct in self-development, when to try new things, how to do them, etc.

That’s why a lot of players who play at the top level admit that they’ve learned to play on the streets before signing for a club and practicing under a coaching team.

They already possessed the natural instinct that guided them through self-development and acquiring a professional contract and a coaching team only intensified that development.

Most soccer players have been spending hours upon hours a day playing soccer ever since they were kids.

Some of them started their careers at academies under professional guidance, others developed in the streets, but the one thing they have in common is that it took them all a lot of hard work to get to where they are today.

When we’re talking about non-professional soccer, it takes far less practice and is mostly about a group of friends having fun.

Still, it takes at least above-average levels of physical capabilities to be able to play soccer like this. No group of ten wants to have a single-player straining them.

Being fit is the groundwork for all sports, everything else is based on that, so being fit (not perfectly, professional athlete levels are not required, but being excessively overweight or malnourished is most likely going to cause you problems in playing the game) is absolutely necessary if you want to progress your game.

Soccer skills (laymen may think this means fancy flicks and ball-juggling, but that’s just the cherry on top of the pie, reading the game, positioning, playing the right passes is far more important than playing with the ball) are developed through experience more than anything, and in order to develop them, more players need to play more and take criticism seriously, improving their game.

How Long Does It Take To Get Good At Soccer?

The players at the very top all started playing soccer very early in their lives (at the ages of 5 and 6), got recruited by an academy quickly, and were professionally developed from that point.

Cristiano Ronaldo is a prime example of never-ending development, as he’s still learning new skills in his mid-30s (an age when most soccer players would retire a decade or two ago), keeping his body in top shape and changing the known limitations of how old a footballer can be when performing at the top level.

Leo Messi, on the other hand, is a naturally talented player; displaying massive amounts of talent at a very early age (unlike Ronaldo who barely got recruited to Sporting’s academy).

Messi was sent from Argentina to Barcelona at the age of 13 and broke through in the first team when he was 16, quickly becoming a regular starter.

The story is wildly similar to Ronaldo, but he moved to Manchester United. Taking the two greatest players of our time as examples; it takes about 10 years (but likely a bit more) to become good enough to be considered a starter for the first team.

Naturally, becoming good at lower levels is considerably easier, especially in non-professional leagues.

If you’re looking just for playing soccer casually, then playing it like that is exactly what you need and shouldn’t take more than a year to get good enough to play regularly.

Most people who play soccer like this have been playing it since early childhood, learning the ropes naturally and quickly.

If you’ve never played soccer in your life and want to play with people that have, then it’s going to be very difficult to integrate into that kind of team.

How Many Hours a Day Should You Practice Soccer?

When practicing soccer, it’s important to include three equally important aspects of the sport; physical preparation, ball skills, and off-the-ball skills.

It’d be ideal to practice for at least three hours a day if you wanted to play it professionally, but if you’re just looking for casual playing then less than that is acceptable.

At least an hour, if not more, of your practice on a field, should be focusing on physical development; especially speed, stamina, and jumping.

Physical strength, although a massively useful tool in the game, is far less important than speed. Soccer players have evolved with the times and a lot of them are strong, as well as pacey, but you should still aim to be able to run quickly for ninety minutes, rather than being able to wrestle a bull.

Ball skills such as dribbling, passing (both short and long), finishing, heading, ball control, etc., are crucial for any player worth their salt.

No player is good at everything, but developing ball skills is something that makes a good player. It takes a lot of practice and literally years just to get good at it.

Also, most of these exercises require a partner or a team of players to perfect, that’s why joining a team and working under a coach might be a good idea.

Off-the-ball skills like vision (noticing players’ movements and knowing when, where and to whom should you send the pass), attack positioning (making runs and knowing where to place yourself to get the ball), tackling, slide-tackling, man-marking, aggression, interceptions, etc., are skills that require a team to practice.

These skills are equally important as ball skills and no player (especially midfielders) is complete without them.

Why Am I Not Getting Better at Soccer?

The reason you might be having issues with development is missing a coach. Training in a team presents vast positive differences when compared to training alone.

Most teams have a coaching staff with decades of experience who get paid to develop your skills. It’s much easier for someone who will see the situation objectively (and assess it as such) to make the necessary augmentations for your exercises.

It’s important to persevere and stay persistent. No one ever became good at anything by quitting, keeping your head down, listening to your coaches, and relying on their experience and profession will without a doubt lead to development.

Receiving constructive criticism is key to any sort of development; someone who knows more than you telling you what you need to fix in order to get better is crucial.

It shouldn’t be considered offensive as the coaches are always looking out for your best interests and just want to see you succeed.

If you disagree about something, then you should talk to them and persuade them into giving you a chance to prove yourself.

The last important thing is noticing when your coaching system is not working out. There are a lot of people at a lot of clubs who aren’t good at their jobs but keep their positions based on seniority.

That means that there are a lot of coaches out there who aren’t good at coaching, or are simply obsolete, but refuse to step down and can’t help players develop.

It’s important to recognize these situations and leave that sort of academy.