The Ultimate Player Secrets: Play Like Messi

Lionell Messi is arguably the best football player in the world with over 82 goals in the 2011-2012 season breaking pele's record, among many many notable other highlights of his career. Today we'll go over his method of dribbling. I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm not an expert but I do enjoy being able to review his plays and try my best to show you what I observe. Granted maybe you've picked up things as well as I have and I may be repeating things but lets go ahead jump and you can see for yourself.
Messi plays a false 9 when he plays for barcelona. This gives his the option of playing high and working to move the ball up from the middle. His methods include fakes, technique and utilization of his supporting players to move into space for a better chance at goal. So without further delay, lets go over some ways messi defeats goalkeepers and scores.

The Tricks of The Trade

1. Try the get the ball shot between 2 players who are distracted by each other's presense (ex. opponent defensive player gaurding against a pass from you and your own teammate) in such a way that there is a small gap (window) in which a goalie wouldn't suspect a ball to come through.
2. Meg a player: get a position in which a side of the goal is open to you and there a player between you and the goal. Make him approach you, pretend to kick diagnal to his position so he will extend his legs out, and instead kick the ball exactly underneath his legs and body. Ball should have gone cleanly underneath him and since the goalie wouldn't suspect such a shot, it will go into the goal.
3. Score from a rebound, make sure to take the area opposite of where the player making the shot will be. That way if he misses and the ball goes to his side, he can score the rebound, if not you can score the rebound. Goalie usually have very little power to absorb the shock of a forcefull shot so a rebound would work well to score especially if the defense is spread out.
4. Chip the ball over the goalie if no defense is visible behind the goalie and you are 10 feet away from the goalie and the goalie is about 10 feet away from goal. No more, no less.

5. Head the ball from a cross. Very self explanatory.
6. When going 1 v. 1 with the goalie, switch feet at the last minute to keep the goalie guessing at which way the ball will go, most likely the goalie has made a decision to which way to slide his body to cover the goal and shoot opposite of the area covered by the goalie with a different foot.
7. If the goalie is recovering from a rebound or a shot, shoot the ball opposite to where his body is moving. If he decides to start getting up towards the right to cover more area, his body will be have momentum towards that area and he wouldn't be able to stop a ball going towards the opposite direction (the left), especially if he is rapidly accelerating in one direction.
8. When in doubt of where to shoot, shoot the area least open (if the goalie is opening up the goal in such a way that one part is bigger than the other, don't shoot in the area of the goal that is open wide because it's a trap.) Aim from the smaller area directly beside the goalie's feet. He will not try to kick the ball away, he will try to dive for it and fail, because it is unexpected for a player to shoot there (it's also harder to aim for and harder to defend).