The Art of the Trap
Why stopping a ball with your foot is a criminally underrated skill
Let’s take a moment and watch Dennis Bergkamp trap a soccer ball for three and a half minutes.
Wasn’t that just great? That was great. Dennis Bergkamp is great. The more perceptive readers among us probably noticed that after each trap Bergkamp makes in that video, he also scores a goal (save for one, where he almost scores a goal). An impossibly awkward pass comes in, Bergkamp stops it with his foot, and then uses his foot again to put it in the back of the net.
You could say that Bergkamp scored these goals because he is (or was) a phenomenal finisher. And you would be correct. Decades of experience paired with a large dose of talent turned Bergkamp’s legs into precision instruments capable of consistently kicking a ball with just the right amount of force in just the right place.
But you could also say that Bergkamp scored these goals because he is (or was) a phenomenal trapper. And you would also be correct. Maybe even more correct. If Bergkamp couldn’t deftly receive lackluster passes, would he even get a chance to finish in the first place?
Let’s look at Bergkamp’s goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup. Frank de Boer smacks a 60-yard ball to a sprinting Bergkamp, who—with a defender draped over his back—sticks out his leg and with a single touch alters the ball’s trajectory in a way that not only angles it away from his defender, but slows it just enough to match his current pace. He doesn’t pluck it out of the air; he merely bends this chaos—this long ball of uncertainty and doubt—to his will. All with a single touch of his right foot. In the 89th minute. In a fraction of a second. With a dude on his back. In the 18-yard box.
When people talk about this singular moment in World Cup history, it’s referred to as, in one permutation or another, “That Bergkamp Goal Against Argentina.” Which: Alright, fine. It’s a great goal, but it draws attention away from the trap.
The trap is the lynchpin. If de Boer didn’t trust Bergkamp’s ability to trap he would have never would have launched a ball down Route 1 in the first place. And if Bergkamp’s trap wasn’t inch perfect, de Boer’s ball would have harmlessly doinked out of bounds. And everyone watching the game would have just enthusiastically waved it off with a “OHH, that was a great ball. Nearly! Nearly.”
To gain a true appreciation for soccer, you need an appreciation for the trap.
Here’s the thing: Soccer is wildly imperfect. “The game is mercilessly hard to play at a high level,” Grantland columnist Brian Phillips writes in his canonical work on boredom in soccer. “You have a game that’s uniquely adapted for long periods of play where, say, the first team’s winger goes airborne to bring down a goal kick, but he jumps a little too soon, so the ball kind of kachunks off one side of his face, then the second team’s fullback gets control of it, and he sees his attacking midfielder lurking unmarked in the center of the pitch, so he kludges the ball 20 yards upfield, but by the time it gets there the first team’s holding midfielder has already closed him down and gone in for a rough tackle, and while the first team’s attacking midfielder is rolling around on the ground the second team’s right back runs onto the loose ball, only he’s being harassed by two defenders, so he tries to knock it ahead and slip through them, but one of them gets a foot to it, so the ball sproings up in the air … etc., etc., etc.
Trapping is soccer’s saving grace. It is the only thing that keeps a game from devolving into a 90-minute loop of throw-ins and goal kicks. Without it there is chaos, or worse yet, boredom. And yet, compared to skills associated with moving the ball—dribbling, passing—controlling the ball is never celebrated. Well, okay, rarely:
For me, the most satisfying moments in soccer are watching people trap. Sure, watching your team convert, or nearly convert chances is exciting! But watching a midfielder cap off a 40-yard ball with a effortless trap is just so satisfying. I mean, look at this Berbatov trap.
Sublime. The second the ball touches Berba’s foot, it is his. But in the overall, geologic scale of the game, this trap is meaningless. He’s at midfield. There isn’t a player—any player—within 15 yards. There is a sea of claret and sky blue ahead of him. I can’t find the rest of this moment on the internet, but I can guess that he probably just passes it to whoever is running towards him in those final frames, who I think is Steve Sidwell? I don’t know. I could watch this GIF until the Sun implodes.
So: Trapping. It’s important and satisfying. Stop checking Twitter while the game sorts itself out in midfield. Pay attention to the traps. Keep your soccer viewing experience trill. You’ll appreciate the Steven Gerrards and Michael Bradleys of the world a whole bunch more.
