in girls HS soccer...what is the distance from the goal when most goals are scored? like from the 6 or 18 yard line or somewhere in between. Thanks Rod in AZ
The stats I have seen are consistent with what Elessar78 said. I suspect it is different for head and foot. I suspect it is also different for restarts and run of play. This will skew the stats. I would guess the average distance by head is about 60% of the finishes by foot. Something to keep in mind for functional training. I think anything beyond about 22 yards by foot is low percentage. Most goals are going to be scored from within the penalty area and probably within the penalty spot. I think this reflects that most goals are scored by getting behind the back line.
I'm a decent finisher in my own right and an accurate passer—but I've never been able to reconcile why I can make a 20 yard pass to a specific foot but can miss the target on goal. Generally you're looking at outer thirds, so 8 feet wide by 8 feet high. If, from 20 yards, I can put it on a 1 foot x 1 foot area by passing, I should be able to do it shooting as well. Alas, it doesn't work that way for me.
I got this from tennis. Don't target the outer third of the goal. Its too big an area. Aim at a small target in that area. It can be a specific hole in the defense or a generic place. I practiced upper corner and lower corner. But not aiming at the corner, but rather a specific spot inside the net/goal. Hard to show or explain. But the focus point is 1-2 feet inside the net, not at the front of the net. I am guessing that, because you are not focused on a specific target, you don't have focus (like when you are passing) and you get distracted by movement of the keeper and defenders. Aiming at a bigger section of the goal is a good place to start with youth players because they don't have the accuracy for a small target, but I would still make the target smaller than a third of the goal. The size of a popup goal feels right to me. You can even place the popup goals inside the large goal to focus the target. You could hang pie plate targets on cords from the goal too. Or place a spare ball inside the net on the ground. For tennis serves I used to place a tennis ball can on the 3 spots I was trying to hit. Top outside corner, top inside corner, and low on the outside line. Then I would aim at the can. You would be surprised at the number of times I hit the cans (about 10%). This is not about where the ball needs to be, but rather about where the focus needs to be.
Aim small, miss small. The smaller your target, the less of an issue it is if you miss. Aiming at a big target and missing big is an issue.
Good target is the wall of the side netting, and not a corner. I see timbuck saw the Patriot and American sniper. The ball tends to go where you look. It' s like when you first learn to drive. I used to have my keepers wear a black shirt with a big yellow dot on the chest. The ball found that big yellow dot a lot.
way back in the early 90's when I really involved in coaching...I found a psyc. article which showed, in shirtsleeve language, that the human eye will see something rather than nothing. meaning that, the GK becomes the target [being something] rather than the empty net [nothing]. you watch how many times the ball gets kicked directly at the keeper, when in fact, there was 20 feet of empty net to place the ball. back to the original ?, I believe the answers are close, between the 6 and 12 yard. I will work on that. Thanks Rod in [hot] AZ