This is what we use at all Kicking World camps and lessons with our Wilson 1001 footballs. And if you have the money, or want the very best, the TorrX smart ball pump will get the ball to the exact PSI you want automatically, so there is no guessing. Pack #YoMeQuedoEnCasa -0%. At worst, be sure to have your optimal football for your kickoffs. Another fine exponent of the dead ball, Sneijder says that hours spent on the training ground as a youngster honed his technique and made him the free kick taker he is today. Copyright © 2020 Kicking World, LLC. Kick and Punt the football as much as you can to ‘break in’ the leather. I’d equate it to a Titleist Pro V1 golf ball vs a Top Flite ball. Always try to find the softest leather football you can find! The Liverpool captain often opts for sheer power to beat goalkeepers in set-piece situations. For camp updates, trainingE-mail Ustips, exclusive offers & more! Anyone who has seen his array of free kicks for Ajax, Real Madrid and Inter will testify that practice has certainly paid off. If you’re able to sink your thumb in there 3/4 of an inch or a full inch, the ball is way under-inflated! Note – if you have a composite (rubber) or youth (smaller) football, the 10.5-11.5 ideal range is not applicable and those footballs will fill up with much less air. Your leg is not used to that extra weight and it can definitely contribute to a hip/quad/etc injury. A World Cup winner with Italy in 2006, Del Piero can curl the ball or hit it with power, as he did with one of his best free kicks against Inter Milan at the San Siro, also in 2006. The narrow pointy ball (Nike One) is excellent for hitting spirals on punts but is absolutely terrible when kicking because the foot more easily wraps around the ball, especially with a bigger foot, creating a wobbly end over end kick. Certain footballs are better for kicking than others... With so many choices of footballs these days, it can be mind boggling for a new kicker, punter or parent to purchase the right football. This means Gerrard is a good option when a free kick is from close range and it is difficult to bend the ball up and over the wall. Because of this I truly believe the best football for a kicker in a game is the fattest, most worked in football you can find. In this article you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about footballs and how to properly maintain and optimize them to help you kick the ball farther than ever! In addition to inflation and getting the correct PSI in your footballs, here are some other things you can do to maximize the effectiveness and carry/distance of your football for kicking and punting. Even the softest natural leather footballs are still fairly rough/firm at first. A big issue many rookie college kickers face is switching to one of the Nike footballs (Vapor Elite, and also a narrow pointy ball – Vapor One). Fortunately, we were able to connect with Wilson and have been working directly with them since. Most refs are judicious about not letting obviously ‘over-worked’ balls into play, but many times they are more lax with the rules on the football you use for the kickoff. This could really foul you up. I think some of the leather balls out there are too tough of leather and don’t have a nice feel. However, at kickingworld.com we offer the Wilson 1001 at a very competitive price and it comes with FREE Shipping! Most KICKERS will prefer a fatter football and most PUNTERS will prefer a narrow football. They never quite recovered and he had to end up purchasing new footballs again. It is a long adjustment period for many high school kickers when entering college if they switch to this narrow style football. Great question! Runner-up goes to the Spalding J5V Advance football which we used for several years prior to our partnership with Under Armour (who stopped making footballs in 2020) which was before we started working directly with Wilson. You can really hurt your leg both with kicking and punting if your ball is waterlogged. Many Texas HS football schools use the Wilson GST leather football so if that’s the one your team uses, buy a few and try to break them in so they aren’t so hard. I discuss this in detail at our camps, private lessons and in my DVD and Book but a simple, short answer is actually a scientific equation. We’ve all heard about the ‘Deflategate’ scandal with the New England Patriots and Tom Brady doctoring up the footballs by taking air out of them before the games. His most famous free kick came against France at the Tournoi de France in 1997. Many of those can also have an NCAA stap and be used in college. His free kick prowess over the years has contributed to Del Piero becoming Juventus’ record goalscorer. The Dutchman claims he looks to aim the ball “between the second and the third man on the outside of the wall.” He checks the position of the keeper and the wind direction, before firing either through or over this part of the wall into one of the corners.