As an outside back it took me a while to learn how to cross a ball correctly.  There is much more to it than just simply striking the ball correctly.

Sometimes the ball needs to be floated into the box or to the far post. Other times it needs to be driven or bent into the box with pace. Furthermore, there are times where the correct thing to do is cross the ball low and hard on the ground behind the last defensive player.

In all of these scenarios there is one thing to remember….unless you are crossing the ball to one specific teammate who is clearly open, your job is simply to place the ball in between the posts around head level while missing out the first defender.

As a player I make the mistake of trying to be perfect too often.  It is important to remember that forwards jobs are to get on the end of good crosses!

With all of that said I think that the wide players (especially at the youth level) need to to be more concerned about crossing the ball into dangerous areas, rather than trying to pick out a teammates head every time.

After all, if you are a forward you should know to run where the ball is going to be crossed all of  the time as opposed to making thirty runs before you receive that one perfect cross.