In simple terms, the chip is a delicate finish that sees you lift the ball up and over the goalkeeper, using their own positioning against them. It is one of the most stylish ways to score a goal that there is, requiring a soft touch and a cool head rather than brute force. When a keeper races off their line to close you down, they leave the space above and behind them exposed and the chip is all about exploiting exactly that gap with a gentle, floated finish rather than trying to blast the ball past them as hard as you can hit it. Think ‘feather’ rather than ‘sledgehammer’.
The reason it is so effective is that it turns the goalkeeper’s own aggression into a weakness. A keeper rushing out to make themselves big is expecting you to try to go around them or to strike the ball hard and low, so a softly lifted finish over the top can leave them scrambling backwards with no chance of getting back to keep it out. The Italian forward Francesco Totti was a master of it, so much so that the finish is sometimes referred to by its Italian name, the ‘cucchiaio’, which translates as ‘the spoon’. The likes of Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimović have also produced their fair share of memorable chips.
To pull it off, the key is in the contact, which needs to be firm but gentle all at once. Rather than following through as you would with a normal shot, you get the bottom of your boot underneath the ball and stab down at it slightly, using a short, sharp jabbing motion to lift it up quickly with plenty of backspin. That backspin is important because it helps the ball to rise and then drop sharply, dipping back down under the crossbar just as the goalkeeper is desperately back-pedalling. The amount of power you use will depend entirely on how far off their line the keeper has come.
As you might imagine, this is a skill that requires a great deal of composure, because you have to keep your nerve and pick out your finish at the precise moment a goalkeeper is charging towards you. It is also one that can go badly wrong, with a chip that lacks height sailing straight into the keeper’s arms and one with too much on it will drift harmlessly over the bar. That is why practising your technique is so important, ideally spending time simply working on lifting the ball up and over an obstacle from different distances. Master it, though, and you’ll have one of the coolest finishes in the game in your locker, ready to embarrass any goalkeeper who dares to rush out and meet you.