Lampard's lessons in football

Chelsea and England midfielder Frank Lampard launched the FA Skills programme in July aiming to get more 5-11 year olds improving their technical ability. Sixty-six coaches will be going into schools to help players of all abilities and as Lampard explains, the methods he learned as a youngster have stayed with him throughout his career.At Chelsea I practise after training because I was given that advice when I was very young: train and work on your skills after everyone else has gone home, work on your weaknesses where you can. That lesson has become part of me.Instead of thinking 'I've had enough now', or 'I can't do it', or 'I can't hit it with my left foot', to try and do more on your own is a great thing to make you into a player. I do lots of shooting, passing and sometimes fitness work if we haven't played games. I'll basically work on anything I feel is relevant at the time. If something is letting me down I'll work hard on that and hopefully the improvement will show in the following weeks.

I know first-hand that dealing with someone with a great technical ability can help you. Gianfranco Zola had probably the best technique I've seen in a footballer I've played with and he was always willing to help others. Zola was a massive influence on me because he arrived when he was 35 and I was amazed how someone at that age could still have that hunger to improve and to take me with him and say 'come on let's do it together'. He was the most talented player I played with. He used to work on shooting with his left foot so he was as comfortable with it as he was shooting with his right. These are basic things but it shows you that players at the top of the game are still doing them.

Football has always been the biggest thing in my life so at any moment after school or during my lunch break I would be training or just playing with my mates as much as I could.Undoubtedly there are more skilful players than me, players like Joe Cole, Wayne Rooney, Gianfranca Zola - they're the more technical players. I like to put myself somewhere in between - a bit of skill and a lot of hard work as well. But what is important is that you make the best out of yourself. There will be players who might not be technically fantastic, but they work as hard as they can at their game and they get themselves to a good level. You have to be very strong. A lot of football is about confidence and believing in yourself.

There is no player who plays at the top level for a long time who doesn't have a period where they come in for criticism or stick - it comes with the territory. So you have to believe in yourself in the bad times and try and come through it - that's a good lesson for anyone I think.