Soccer or Taekwondo: which should my child try first?

By Master Milad

The hardest day in sport

Here’s something most parents don’t know. To become an Olympic or World taekwondo champion, you win your whole division in a single day. Four or five matches against the best in the world, morning to night.

Name a harder day in sport. We’ll wait.

That’s the engine taekwondo builds. It’s the same engine a soccer player needs.

There’s no off-ball in taekwondo

Martial arts built on kicking are exhausting, and taekwondo is built on kicking. Your legs are the heaviest tools you’ve got. Every kick means lifting one fast and getting it back down. Land it, miss it, block one with your shin: it all costs energy.

Soccer gives you moments to breathe. The ball’s on the far side, so you jog for a second. In a taekwondo match there’s no far side. It’s you, your partner and the next kick.

Train like that a couple of times a week and the last ten minutes of a soccer game feel different. That’s when the player who’s still sprinting wins the ball.

Foot-eye coordination

Soccer is a game of foot-eye coordination. So is taekwondo. One aims at a ball. The other aims at a target that moves and kicks back.

Most players have a strong foot and a weak one. We kick with both, so the weak side catches up.

And the bicycle kick, the goal every young player dreams of scoring? Leave the ground, turn in the air, strike with your foot. That’s a jumping kick. Jumping kicks are our thing.

Same muscles, different mindset

Both sports build the same legs: strong calves, quick feet, fast changes of direction. The quick, springy muscles that win the sprint to a loose ball are the same ones that snap a kick. We just train them from a different angle.

That angle matters. Martial artists aren’t soft. They bow in, face a partner and step forward anyway. Bring that eye of the tiger onto the field and it shows. It’s what lifts a player above the pack.

What soccer gives a martial artist

A team. Fresh air. A ball. We train indoors, and we don’t have a ball.

Soccer teaches things we don’t, and a child who plays both usually loves both more.

If you’re picking one to start

Taekwondo first. Yes, we’re biased. Here’s why anyway.

It runs year round and it doesn’t get rained out. Your child earns wins they can see, a stripe, then a belt, at their own pace. And everything above (the legs, the lungs, both feet, the nerve) goes with them into every sport after it.

The schedule trap

We’ve seen it happen. A family signs up for soccer, taekwondo, swimming and piano in the same September. By November the child is tired, the parents are tired, and everything gets dropped at once.

Two things done well beat four done halfway.

When soccer season gets busy

Don’t quit to make room. Talk to your school’s front desk first. A short freeze is an option (see our policy), and picking it back up after a season off is a lot harder than staying in. (My kid wants to quit taekwondo. What should I do?)

So, which one?

Both, if you can. Taekwondo first, if you can’t.

Bring them to a free class this week. Then watch what it does for their soccer.