How to develop & Improve your soccer knowledge
Soccer is the world’s most popular team sport, played and watched by millions across the globe. With professional leagues being contested across practically every continent, there’s almost always a match taking place at any given time.
The popularity and mainstream coverage of the sport, which have made it a key source of entertainment globally, coupled with its simple rules, make it relatively straightforward to develop a knowledge of how it’s played. But how can you take your expertise to the next level?
In this article, we will discuss some of the strategies that the experts use to develop their knowledge of soccer that you can utilize to further your own understanding of the world’s best teams and players.
Study the form guides
Unlike in the old days, when researching sport required leafing through dusty books, today you can find a wealth of fixtures, results and statistics online with just a couple of taps, whether you’re browsing on your laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Developing your knowledge of a club’s recent record, including league and cup matches, can help you predict the outcome of upcoming fixtures. You can examine how well a team performs at home, how well it travels, and use this knowledge to project the next winners.
Knowledge like this is very useful if you’re planning on betting on the outcome of a particular match. In fact, many sports betting sites offer this information as part of their platform, even providing predictions from experts and analysts to help customers make their selection.
Watch as many matches as you can
When you’re following sport, it’s easy to settle into just following your own team’s games. You develop a fondness and familiarity for your favorite players, and you’ll enjoy the ups and downs of tracking their fortunes over the course of a season.
However, the top soccer experts watch as many matches as they can, regardless of whether or not they feature their favorite teams. This way, you are able to see a much larger number of players perform and understand the different ways teams set up their formations.
Only watching games involving your team gives you a fairly one-dimensional view of a particular side, and it’s no surprise that the majority of the world’s leading managers and players spend time studying video of their opponents against other teams in the lead up to matches, with some going as far as spying on opponents while they train!
Follow the international scene
Another way to get a broader perspective of a particular player’s abilities is by watching them in international action. It’s fairly common for a soccer player to produce very different form when playing for their country compared to when playing for their club.
This difference can help illustrate a player’s potential or, conversely, expose their weaknesses if they are surrounded by weaker players or a different system. The best players in the world, like Cristiano Ronaldo, can produce their top form for club and country, while others, like Paul Pogba, have attracted criticism for their inability to replicate their international form at club level.
Watching matches at club and international level, including clashes between clubs from different countries, will add extra depth to your knowledge of the sport and equip you with the insight to make smarter observations ahead of upcoming matches.
We hope this guide to developing your soccer knowledge has proved useful. Recognized as the beautiful game, soccer has the ability to enthral and excite – and you’ll enjoy it even more with a little expertise.
