5 Dangers of Performing Tricks in Matches: Stay Safe and Avoid Injury

Okay, tried it a couple of times, but then again 70% of the time, the tricks don’t work. Yes, soccer tricks are ‘cool’, eye catchy and sometimes very satisfying, but sometimes during a real match, it is somewhat risky to be pulling off tricks – even for the pros. Imagine when a player like Sol Campbell, Lucio or Patrick Vieira coming after you to get the ball. Physical players like these can often cause injury to a player who tries to mess around with tricks. Well, back to our level then. Trying tricks like step-overs, flip-flops and other similar tricks is quite risky during a game and can cause a team to lose to a goal or even worse, causing injury, and further embarrassment. Players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Robinho have been, in the past, injured partly because of trying one trick too many when trying to get past opposition players.

At high running speeds, the risk is even higher as a slight loss of balance or a small touch on the calf can cause you to go tumbling. Even for me and my mates, we’ve tried it and some of us have ended up with bruises and sore ankles – not to mention that was just in a 5 a side game. Body parts that are most prone to injury when performing tricks are usually (in my opinion and experience) the ankle, calf, and toe. This is because usually when a defender tackles, he/she goes for the ball at the foot, a slightly late tackle or a mistimed trick can make things look really ugly. The main thing to keep in mind here is that when performing a trick or so during a game, always make sure that you are 100% committed, quick, precise and assured that the outcome would be positive, do not gamble on pulling it off or just hoping on luck. We ended up floored, don’t let that happen to you, always go for the ‘brains first’ policy.

Doing the same trick too many times might not work either since the defender can anticipate your movement and starts to adapt to your style. Perhaps for amateur players, it would be better to have an element of surprise, or in other words, try not to do the same trick consecutively during a match.

Lately, one of the best, if not the best player in the world, Lionel Messi, has been destroying defenders with ease. But in case you’ve not taken notice, Messi does not try fancy tricks such as stepovers or flip-flops. He keeps it simple, with close control, sudden changes in speed and direction or just a disguised shoulder drop to put off a defender. All this, done to perfection, with devastating effect. Well, for now, we’d love to hear your comments and feedback about this topic, so feel free to drop a comment. Lastly, we’d leave you with a little ‘failed tricks’ compilation we found on youtube. Cheers.