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I have generally seen in many of the youtube videos, which attempt to teach how to hit a knuckleball perfectly, they tell that after striking the ball, one should not take the foot too far ahead, rather stop it almost instantly. For some specific type of passes like the ping, the driven ball, etc a similar advice is given.

What I want to ask is why does it matter to instantly stop our foot movement after the impact with the ball during a shoot or a pass?

The reason why I am asking this is that sometimes I think that after we have struck the ball, the ball will do what it has to just because of the impact of our foot at the moment of shooting, not because how we end up our shoot or if we arrest our foot movement or not.

I hope I'm clear with my question, and also that it's not a stupid question. However, I know that if I take my foot along with the ball after striking it, it will not go as I wish (in case of knuckleball). So I want to ask why that is so.

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  • I'm not downvoting because you're obviously making an effort to get the point across and establish a good question, but I'm voting to close because I've tried twice and still can't decipher exactly what you're asking so that I can edit to make it clearer for others.
    – Nij ♦
    Mar 24, 2017 at 8:52
  • I want to know why is it necessary for someone like me, who wants to know how to strike a knuckleball perfectly, to just stop my foot as soon as I strike it?
    – Saksham
    Mar 24, 2017 at 9:34
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    Perfectly clear and interesting question which also produced an excellent answer. Don't see any reasons why it should be voted to close.
    – gdrt
    Mar 24, 2017 at 15:42
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    Well, no, it's not perfectly clear, if someone with an excellent grasp of English has to ask that it be edited to make it more clear. If you think it's so abundant unambiguous, you should edit so we don't need to closevote.
    – Nij ♦
    Mar 25, 2017 at 1:35

2 Answers 2

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If I understand your question right, I think it is matter of physics.

What you are saying would make sense if the foot and the ball are perfectly hard objects: when they collide, there is only one point of impact so it would not matter what your foot does after the impact.

But as the foot and the ball are soft materials, there is not only one point of impact but several ones. Also, the foot and the ball stay in contact for a short moment.

You can find extreme slowmotion videos like this one where you can see that the ball and the foot are in contact for a few frames.

How your foot moves after the first impact is very important because it will apply the desired effect; if your foot doesn't execute the right movement after the first contact it could do some unwanted other contacts that will add unwanted effects on the ball.

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The accepted answer to this question does a good job at explaining the physics behind why these kinds of rules exist, but I'd like to add that in some scenario's, the followthrough serves as a psychological trick for the player: if you're concentrating about not making your foot swing after hitting a knuckleball, that might very well change the way you think about the shot itself, and thus help as a memorisation tool of how to hit the ball for your brain.

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    That's right, the same way that in throwing sports like darts or pétanque, it is advised to keep the correct movement even once the object has left the hand.
    – Bebs
    Nov 20, 2018 at 12:59

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