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TOP soccer players needn’t waste time getting the ball onto their “stronger”
foot. Psychologists who analysed play at the last World Cup found that although
players prefer to use their stronger foot they are just accurate with the other
one.

Professionals practise every day so that they can shoot and pass the ball as
accurately with their left foot as their right. “Two-footedness is important for
success in soccer and gives players a strategic advantage,” says David Carey, a
sports psychologist at the University of Aberdeen.

Carey and his team studied videos of all the games in the 1998 World…

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