Recently I've seen a surge in the number of CM-related posts on here. Center midfield is by far the most difficult position IMO (excluding goalkeeper) because you're always involved with play and you always have to be ready to receive the ball. That is not true for any other position on the field.
I've played center midfield for six years. I currently play for a club in one of the highest and most competitive leagues in the USA, in addition to playing for my school team. By no means do I know everything about the position, but I would say I've accumulated quite a lot of knowledge on it over the past several years. So here are my top tips:
Know your situation before you receive the ball. I can't stress this enough. If you wait until the ball is at your feet to decide what to do, you're toast. Always know where your teammates are and where opponents are. This means everyone - strikers, center backs, wingers, even your keeper (because it might be helpful to know where your keeper is if you're going to pass back to him, otherwise this could happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh-NIwfdAgI).
Always look to get the ball. This should go without saying, but when you don't have the ball you always need to be moving into positions where you can get it. Into windows between the opposition midfielders. Into the gap between the midfield and defensive lines. Dropping back to give your teammate a square ball option. Moving up to support the strikers. Even making curled runs towards the corner flags. The best midfielders in the world all work tirelessly to get the ball at their feet.
Work on opening up your body and turning 180 degrees with your first touch. This one is more mental than technical. When most players are about get the ball, they want to receive and control it as soon as possible. This usually leads to pointless first touches that leave the player under heavy pressure right away. Open up your body so that you can take that first touch with your back (farther away) foot, and attack the open space. 99 times out of 100 the space on the opposite side from which you received the ball will be less congested than the side the ball came from.
Don't be afraid to play backwards. I personally am sometimes a culprit of the opposite - I play conservatively too often - but most people don't do it enough.
Don't focus too much on dribbling. All the time we see crazy highlights of the best players dribbling and feinting through four defenders at once, but for every one of those, there's two hundred times when that player just passed the ball without doing anything eye-popping. There's a good reason why nobody likes an excessive dribbler: dribbling doesn't win games. Teamwork does. That might sound corny and cliche, but it's true.
Shoot the ball! Shooting is by far the most fun part of soccer, yet so many midfielders forget to do it. If you're anywhere within 20-25 yards (depending on your shooting skill), your first instinct should be to create a shooting opportunity. Also, if you're a center mid you should be practicing longer shots during training rather than 1v1s, headers, or tap-ins. In six years of playing the position I can remember maybe two proper 1v1s and only a handful of clear-cut chances to score from less than 10-12 yards or so for me. Excluding penalty kicks, my last five or six goals have been from outside the penalty area. So the point is, hit shots. A good coach will never be mad at you for a good attempt, even if there was a better option available in hindsight (though he/she might not be happy if you put it over the bar by 20 feet - been there, done that).
Instead of being highly aggressive on defense, aim to just contain and stifle the opposition's attack. So many goals materialize because a center mid got lazy and just stuck his/her leg out at the ball and hoped. That usually doesn't turn out well. It's not your job to steal the ball every time you are defending. Just contain them and wait for them to make a mistake. If you force them to play backwards or sideways, that's a win for you.
Learn to put your body between the ball and the opponent. If you don't do this, you will lose the ball way too many times. There's no shame in shielding the ball for a second or two and letting your teammates adjust before finding a pass.
Those are my best pieces of advice. Keep in mind I'm still growing and getting better as a player as well. I don't know everything.
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I have an additional thought for #6:
Most of the time when a CM has an opportunity to take a shot the box is pretty crowded. That’s an additional reason to take a shot because there’s a decent chance that the ball pings off of someone and then it ends up being a scramble and one of your guys can pounce on it. Sometimes you might even draw a penalty or get a super lucky deflection. Especially if the opposing team is just sitting back and letting you kick the ball around, just take a chance and bang it into the box and see what happens. Ugly goals are still goals!
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Offensively:
Make short, quick passes and move to a new position to help—don't watch your pass then move; you should already be nearing your next location to anticipate the next play by the time the ball arrives to your target.
Look for simple through balls. Messi does this amazingly well, threading the ball through the defense and slotting a teammate in for a 1-on-1 with the goalie.
Practice your pings (those mid-to-long ranged chips Beckham is amazing at). When I play center mid I use this a lot to loft the ball over the last defender so my teammate has a nice run on to a 1-touch half-volley on goal.
Practice your first touch. A lot of people tend to stick with a first touch that lands in front of them, but if you open your hips and turn around the ball on your first touch, you can open the field up in a split second and make a deadly through ball to spread the field or create an attack. Watch Zidane clips.
Defensively:
Mark the space.
Block the passing lane.
Force the play to the wings.
Keep your knees bent and your butt low to the ground. Most defenders get burned because they don't do this; instead, they stand straight and don't shuffle their feet, causing them to trip over themselves when the attacker makes a cut, letting them slip by.
Most importantly:
Be aware of all the angles around you. The more 'triangles' you're connected to, the more options you have. This typically means you should stay in a central location and keep your head pivoting. You're likely to get more touches than most players on the field, so make them valuable touches.
Always be directing your team. You're the commander; the offensive mid is the executor. How you position yourself early in the play often dictates how the play ends up. If you haven't said something in 10 seconds, you're being too quiet, even it's just saying, "good run." Morale is very important.
To be honest, 5 weeks isn't enough time to improve dramatically. I think it's important to temper your expectations. Maybe this year you are on the bench mainly, but by next year you improve into a starter...
My best advice to you is to check out the book SOCCER IQ. The lessons in there are short, simple, and pretty much line up with the top-level soccer you see on TV.
The first lesson in that book is ball movement. From what you've said, you're holding the ball too long and taking too long to make decisions.
Step one is scanning the field before you get the ball and identifying your passing options. Step two, when the ball comes to you, immediately use one of those options. Sometimes the best option is passing the ball back where it came. Not every pass or touch on the ball has to be game changing.
Vision and decision-making is something I'm trying to improve on as well. What has helped me is: One-touch passing. When the ball comes to me, I will often play it first time to a teammate. This ensures the defense can't pressure me, and it forces me to think ahead.
You mentioned you're a good dribbler, and that's great, but when watching high-level soccer you'll see that dribbling is relatively rare. Most of the time, players take two touches: control and pass.
In terms of drills, I think plain old juggling is pretty helpful. In a game, the ball can come at you in any way, at head level, chest level, thigh level, shin level, foot level. It can come fast or slow, high or low, and your first touch should be able to put the ball exactly where you want it.
So if you practice juggling with all parts of your body, that can be really good for your first touch.
It sounds like you have a good attitude and you are working to improve. You will get better, it just takes time.
Your BRAIN will develop to understand the right move to make. Your SKILLS will allow you to make that move. And your FITNESS will allow you to keep running and be in the right place at the right time.
Keep up the good work!
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First of all: scan your surroundings, do a shoulder check over and over again, be aware of everyone's position, it'll give you a lot more time to think about your next move if you know where your teammates are and which angle(s) you're going to be attacked from.
Coupled with that, work on your positioning!
It's irritating to have opponents behind you, so focus on always having an open body stance when you receive the ball, you need to be able to move into space with your first touch or at least know which way you're going to be pressured from.
Move in between the lines, try to get into positions behind and in between opposing players instead of calling for the ball close to your defense. It's a lot harder for the other team to defend you when the line of players you want to play through can't see you and have to do constant shoulder checks themselves.
When you pass, you see the game before you, think about where your teammate wants to move and pass the ball to the foot that'll be able to take the first touch into open space or into the direction he needs to pass next.
In general the role of a central midfielder depends a lot on your tactical formation though, you can have a lot of different tasks.
Of course you can always work on your defensive or offensive skillset but that's probably a given for any player, you don't need a specific role to want to improve yourself as a player, the tactical parts are more interesting, albeit requiring you in part to work together with your teammates as a unit.
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I mean it really depends on the system you’re playing in and you’re role in the midfield.
You seem to have identified your weaknesses so work on those the most, improve your dribbling and you sound like you’d be a decent attacking midfielder. Look up some dribble exercises and go through them slowly and increase the pace as you get better.
Otherwise a lot of the game for a central midfielder is mental, recognizing space, knowing where to be, knowing what to do with the ball before you get it etc. since you’re not up to training full speed now would be a good time to just watch pros and what they do. Watch matches and track the center mid the whole game, take notes of what he does and how he handles certain situations. YouTube is a good resource but don’t just watch highlight vids.
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Put simply centre mids are all rounders. A good mix of passing, tackling, awareness and stamina are required as you're expected to perform all of those roles.
There are ariations like defensive mid (protects the 2 centrebacks), attacking mid which branch off into other types like deep lying defensive midfeeilder, passing attacking mid, dribbling attacking mid etc etc.
When in possession like to pass the ball to other attacking players to create chances. Move into space (i.e. away from opposition players) to receive the ball yourself. If you're tightly marked move to 'drag' a marking player with you to create space for other players.
When playing without possession look to break up opposition attacks. Mark their dangerous players if necessary, intercept passes, harry and pester opposition to put them off.
Try looking at some youtube vids for player examples. These can include:-
defensive midfielders include - David Batty, Roy Keane, Owen Hargreaves, Nigel De Jong attacking midfielders - Mesut Ozil, Paul Gascoigne, Zinedine Zidane
There,s quite a bit of overlap between attacking and defending in midfield, Steven Gerrard is a good example as someone who tried to do both but seemed to lacked the discipline to be a truly excellent defensive midfielder.
Here's 2 youtube vids that you might find helpful:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOh-lXuaVFs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-PggOxE25Q
Apologies about the appalling music, its the cancer of many football vids unfortunately.
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CAM
Focus on your first touch so that you can successfully do one of 3 things:
Turn up-field with the ball.
Switch the point of attack.
Play a ball through to a striker.
You want to make space for yourself and/or your teammates making runs. Don't be afraid to come back to the ball to receive a pass, just make sure you're ready to take action once you get it.
My natural position where I feel I play best is right back but my coach loves how I play CAM. So for about 2/3 years I played as CAM and tbh I loved every bit of it. One of the biggest benefits you have by playing CAM is that you have the ability to be creative with not much fear of a goal scoring opportunity for the other team if you lose the ball (compared to playing defense). My favorite part about that position is that basically you have the freedom of a striker with the constant balls you get as a CM. My biggest advice would be to be aware of your positioning at all times. Do not get lost too in the center as you will conflict with your CMs and don’t go up too much to where you conflict with the striker. While in possession on wings I would say stay at or around 18 yard line area as that is always where the ball will fall after a rebound. Hope that helped! And if you have specific questions let me know!
CDM
Avoid straying from your position, slow down the opponent's attacks without overcommitting, fight hard to clear airballs at the highest point you can get your head up to, give your other midfielders a safe passing option when they are under pressure and look to quickly distribute the ball and switch the field.
I've been playing CM/CDM this season and I've had to learn quickly. The most important aspect of defending when you're a CDM is positioning, your job is to cut pathways to your defensive line. When you're defending imagine you're a crab and you just have to shuffle along cutting out pass routes and taking up spaces in front of your CBs. You're basically the gatekeeper.
Never dive in unless you're certain you can get the ball, if you dive in and you miss it you've now given up space your team has worked hard to get and that's without mentioning the psychological edge it gives your opponent.
There is a lot more but that is a good basis to start from, the best way to learn is to just keep playing and watch football, look at pro players in that position and analyse what they're doing.
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