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Mental Skills Toolkit:

How to Stop Missing Easy Goals in Soccer

Published: November 3, 2021
Updated: February 20, 2023
By: Jenn Ireland

Category: Performing under Pressure

Directly in front of the net, ball at your feet, only the goalkeeper left to contend with. And then all of a sudden you lose composure. You panic, you freak out, you get overly excited, whatever the case may be, you lose control of your emotions and your focus, and end up MISSING THE GOAL. You’ve been here before right?

The ball gets shanked wide or over the top of the net, or knocked directly at the goalkeeper. And then the negative self-talk sets in, the obsessing over the missed opportunity, the replaying of the mistake, and you feel the embarrassment of being right in front of the goal and unable to convert.

So, I think it’s time we figure out how to stay calm & composed to stop missing easy goals in soccer. What do you think?

Missing easy goals: Why does it happen?

There are many reasons that soccer players aren’t able to put the ball in the back of the net during seemingly easy goal-scoring opportunities. Some of the most common reasons are lack of technical ability to execute, lack of confidence in front of the net, and lack of composure and focus in high-pressure game situations.

The solution to the first two (technical ability and confidence) is similar: preparedness.

Simply put, you have to put in the time and do the work if you want to get better at striking the ball and scoring goals. Not only will you be more technically prepared to execute better, it’ll also increase your confidence. When you relentlessly practice a skill over and over and over again, you will gain faith in your ability to perform that skill and will have an easier time transferring it to a live game situation than if you hadn’t practiced it over and over.

Keep calm and stay composed

When soccer players lose their composure in front of the net, their train of rational & intentional thoughts stop and they end up just kicking the ball without much intention behind where it is placed, how their body is positioned or how the ball is struck. In other words they run their foot though the ball and take a shot without really thinking about anything. They just ‘kick’.

When this happens, it can feel like your emotions are highjacking your focus and composure. They are getting in the way and crowding out the good, useful and constructive thinking. The stuff THAT YOU NEED to be thinking about in order to finish the job.

Whether you get nervous and panic, or you get prematurely excited about scoring, in order to stop missing easy goals in soccer you have to work on not getting mentally distracted by the situation and keeping yourself focused until AFTER you have completed the task at hand.

Staying focused under pressure

Scoring goals in soccer, especially the seemingly easy ones, is a lot about self-regulation skills. Self-regulation is your ability to control your thoughts, feelings and behaviors to achieve a desired outcome. Having good self-regulation skills on the field means you are able to keep a clear head and make good decisions even when the situation changes and you need to pivot and adjust.

Soccer players with strong emotional self-regulation have the ability to stay focused in high-pressure game situations. They are able to hold their emotions in check until after the pivotal moment of required focus has passed, such as putting the ball into the back of the net in a goal scoring situation.

Icy cold finish

When you are calm and composed in front of the net and able to get a good, well-placed strike on the ball, some call that an ‘icy cold finish’. An icy cold finish means that you have complete focus and control of your emotions as you are finishing. This is common to witness with penalty kicks, as players often approach the ball under extreme concentration and do not let their emotions (good or bad) enter the picture and get in the way of their focus until after the ball has been struck.

Ice-cold finish from Kingsley Coman to bring @FCBayernUS level ❄️ pic.twitter.com/eo0nm85O5b
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 6, 2020

Good goal scorers have the ability to shut out all of the noise and focus on the task at hand. They experience clarity in front of the goal, their mind is not clouded by emotions or negative thoughts and they are able to stay composed and execute the things they’ve relentlessly worked on: shot placement, body position and ball striking among the many.

Grow your confidence through preparedness.

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Here's how to stop missing easy goals in soccer

How to stop missing easy goals in soccer is not to threaten yourself of tell yourself NOT to miss (if that’s your strategy you need to change things up because telling yourself what not-to-do doesn’t work).

The key is that you have to replace the anxiety or the excitement with something else, something that is helpful to you in this exact moment. And that something is instructional self-talk.

Instructional self-talk is the #1 way to stop missing easy goals in soccer. This type of self-talk is basically messages that you say to yourself on repeat, giving yourself instructions about what you should be doing in this moment. It can also be questions that you ask yourself in order to direct your attention to the things you should be doing in this exact moment.

The instructions you provide to yourself are actually two-fold. Not only do they divert your attention towards the task at hand and away from the anxiety, excitement or nerves that you feel, but they also help remind you of the things that you should be doing in the seconds before you take your shot. The controllable elements of your technique that will make your shot better.

Self-talk to help you stop missing easy goals in soccer

Here are several ways to help direct your attention onto things that are good and useful in the moment if you want to stop missing easy goals in soccer:

Placement in the goal

Look at the keeper, figure out where they are and then consciously choose where you want to place the ball in the goal. Do this BEFORE making contact with the ball, NOT AFTER. Should you go with low and driven? Upper corner? A passed finish on the ground? Emotions can cause you to rush your shot and strike the ball before you’ve chosen a location which often results in a shank or a shot fired right at the keeper.

Body positioning and ball contact

Are you positioned correctly to execute your chosen placement on frame? Are you getting your body over the ball and arms out for balance? Is your plant foot placed correctly, knee over the ball, hips rotated correctly? Choose how you will make contact with the ball, will it be your laces for power or the inside of your foot for a passed finish away from the goalie?

Upgrading the shot

This is a great question to ask yourself to keep from getting distracted by emotions: do I need to upgrade the shot? Can I see at least 50% of the net? If you cannot (maybe the goalkeeper came off their line or a defender slid into the way) then you probably need to do a bit of maneuvering in order to give the ball a better chance of going in. Take a prep touch to push the ball into better space, or cut left or right to get yourself into a hole.

Focus to finish

Now missing an easy goal is never fun, but here’s the even bigger problem. It’s never fun to miss a shot, but now you are also you are completely in your head about it and unable to focus on the game in front of you AFTER the missed opportunity. When you focus your attention onto mistakes, you are no longer in the present moment. And ironically (and unfortunately), not being fully present mentally is actually what leads to ADDITIONAL MISTAKES.

The more you practice using instructional self-talk during high-pressure game situations, the easier it will become and the more confidence you’ll gain in front of the goal. Choose to focus on INSTRUCTIONAL SELF-TALK before the feelings can take hold and you might find yourself in more control that usual.

Don’t let the high emotions of the moment keep you from getting what you want and putting that ball away. You worked WAY too hard for that.

So, sit down right now and come up with your own personal set of ‘instructions’ for what you will do the next time you find yourself in a seemingly easy goal scoring situation – AND THEN GO OUT THERE AND GET THAT NEXT BANGER. You got this.

Hi everyone! I’m Jenn and I create content to help female soccer players and coaches maximize individual and team potential by developing healthy mindset skills. Join other subscribers and sign up for the newsletter for all my best tips and advice!

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Hi everyone!

I'm Jenn, a USSF C-licensed youth soccer coach, mental skills coach & founder here at Expand Your Game. I created this site because it is the site I needed when I was a soccer player.

About me: I am a former newspaper photojournalist who loves downtempo electronic music, guacamole and books of every sort. And of course soccer! On days off you can find me researching tiny farms in Portugal , tossing a frisbee for my dog, or tending to my growing collection of indoor plants.