Players hoping to improve in their technical ability sometimes run into a basic but serious obstacle.

There’s nobody to practice with.

Team practices don’t provide nearly enough time for individual work on the ball, and parents and friends may help, but can’t always be there either.

Mike O’Neill, associate head coach at Rutgers University and Girls Director of Coaching at vaunted New Jersey club PDA, employs a rather simple solution, but one that has been used overseas for many years.

Kick a ball against a wall.

OK, you may expect something more complicated than that, but the training method does revolve around the player, the ball and the wall.

“Growing up it’s all I did,” said O’Neill, who cut his soccer teeth on America’s soccer playground of Kearny, New Jersey. “I knocked a ball against a wall religiously. Nothing was more helpful to getting a good first touch and being comfortable on the ball.”

O’Neill has taken the method and put into a more systematic application at PDA. He has instituted a “Wall Club” in which players on his U13 and U15 Girls teams are required to spend time each week kicking against a wall and counting touches. Each player is required to report her number of touches in the wall exercise under an honor system.

“You might do it and report 1,000 touches. Then you see I did it I had 5,000 touches and that will make you go ‘I need to do more against the wall,’” he said. “So you can get into the tens of thousands of touches each week per team.”

As evidenced by the consistently high standard on the ball shown by PDA players, the actual training is more than simply knocking the ball against the wall.

“I give them the program that I did when I was younger,” he explained. “There’s left and right foot, on the ground and in the air, two-touch, and one-touch. The 13s and 15s do it now. Even at Rutgers each players has to get three wall sessions every week. You can work on hitting it with the inside of your feet, with the laces, with the ball bouncing out of the air and side volleys. You can play a juggling game where you juggle once, hit it against the wall, then juggle twice and hit it again. Then each week I expect the players to share some games they came up with during the week to help keep it fresh.”

O’Neill said willingness to participate ends up being a major sign as to each player’s commitment to become a better player.

“The biggest thing is just the player, ball and wall,” he said. “It you want to get better on the ball, it can’t just be from the time they come to practice. I can get the support of the player’s family and help them understand this is homework you have to do, but I find the kids want to do it. Especially when they see their first touch and their confidence get better and better, they really want to spend more time with the ball on their own.”

So if you want to grow technically, find a nearby wall.