• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Creative Writing Prompts About Soccer

The long walk to the spot, a game in the rain, a stranger at practice, and a rule to argue.

Creative Writing Prompts About Soccer

Show all 60
  1. Is a soccer game that ends with no goals a dull one or a great one? Argue one side.Angle: think of the saves, the near misses and the last five minutes.
  2. Write a soccer penalty kick as a younger brother or sister watching from behind the goal.First line: From back here the net looked much too big to miss, and I said so.
  3. The new soccer teammate is the coach's own child. Write the first scrimmage.Angle: who passes to them, who does not and what the coach pretends not to see.

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All 60 prompts

A penalty 15

  • A penalty kick in soccer is one kicker against one keeper. Write it as a staring contest. Angle: nobody blinks, the field goes quiet and the whistle ends it.
  • A soccer game goes to a penalty shootout, and you are fifth in line. Write the wait. Angle: four teammates go before you. How does each one walk back?
  • A soccer goalkeeper has never saved a penalty in her life. Write the one she saves. Angle: was it a guess, a clue or plain luck? Let her decide what to tell people.
  • A soccer penalty is given, and the team's best kicker hands the ball to someone else. Write why. Angle: a first goal for a friend, a promise, a hunch. What does the team think?
  • In a soccer game at the park with no referee, someone shouts Penalty. Write how the players settle it. Angle: a vote, a do-over, the oldest player decides. What is the park's rule?
  • The penalty kick hits the post. Write the sound, and the half second in which nobody on the soccer field moves. Angle: then everybody moves at once. Who gets to the rebound?
  • The team takes penalty kicks at the end of every soccer practice. Write the day nobody could score. Angle: what was different: the keeper, the wind, the mood?
  • Write a six-line poem about a soccer penalty: two lines for the run-up, two for the kick, two for after. Angle: keep the lines short. A penalty is over fast.
  • Write a soccer penalty kick as a younger brother or sister watching from behind the goal. First line: From back here the net looked much too big to miss, and I said so.
  • Write a soccer penalty kick as the ball: placed on the spot, turned once and left alone. First line: She set me down with the valve facing up, the way she always does.
  • Write a soccer player's routine before a penalty kick: every small thing done the same way every time. Angle: socks pulled up, three steps back, one breath. What happens when a step is skipped?
  • Write about a soccer penalty kick that was saved, from the kicker's side, one day later. First line: I have taken that kick forty times since, in my head, and scored thirty-nine.
  • Write the argument on a soccer field over whether it was a penalty at all, in dialogue only. Angle: the referee says four words in the whole scene. Choose them well.
  • Write the walk from the center circle to the penalty spot, as the soccer player chosen to take the kick. Angle: count the steps. What do you look at: the ball, the keeper or your own shoes?
  • You are the goalkeeper facing a penalty kick in soccer. Write the seconds before the whistle. First line: She looked left. So I knew she would not go left. Unless she knew I knew.

The muddy pitch 15

  • A dry soccer field and a muddy one: write how the same pass behaves on each. Angle: one rolls true and one dies halfway. How does a team change its game?
  • A puddle sits just in front of one goal on the soccer pitch. Write how it changes the second half. Angle: one team learns to use it. The other keeps forgetting it is there.
  • Describe a muddy soccer pitch at the final whistle: the goalmouths, the center circle, the touchlines. Angle: where is the mud deepest, and what does that tell you about the game?
  • The groundskeeper looks at the soccer pitch the morning after a game in the rain. Write what she sees. Angle: she reads the field like a page: here a goal, there a pile-up. What does she fix first?
  • It has rained for three days and the soccer game is on anyway. Write the first ten minutes on the muddy pitch. First line: The ball stopped dead in a puddle, and so did all of us.
  • One of your cleats comes off in the mud in a soccer game, with the ball at your feet. Write what you do with one shoe on. First line: The mud kept my left boot, and I kept running.
  • The white lines of the soccer pitch have washed away in the rain. Write the argument about whether the ball went out. Angle: there is a line in everyone's memory, and no two agree.
  • Write a knee slide through the mud after a goal on a soccer field, from the first step to the stop. Angle: was it on purpose? How far did you go, and who was watching?
  • Write a rainy soccer game as the goalkeeper, who stands in the deepest mud on the pitch. Angle: the puddle in the goalmouth has a name by halftime. What is it?
  • Write a soccer game in the mud as the person who will wash the uniforms. First line: I counted the shirts into the machine and could not tell which color we had started in.
  • Write a soccer game played in fog, snow or a strong wind in place of mud, and what the weather did to the ball. Angle: a goal kick that came back, a ball nobody could find. Choose one weather.
  • Write about the cleanest player on a muddy soccer field, and what the rest of the team thinks of that. Angle: a substitute, a careful winger, a keeper with nothing to do. End with a splash.
  • Write the ride home after a muddy soccer game: towels on the seats, windows fogged, shin guards in a bag. Angle: who talks first, and is it about the game or about the smell?
  • Write the smell, the sound and the feel of a muddy soccer pitch, with no sight at all. Angle: wet grass, the thud of a heavy ball, cold shin guards. Which sense tells you the most?
  • Write the team photo after a soccer game on a muddy pitch, when nobody can tell the two teams apart. Angle: only the goalkeepers' gloves give anyone away. Line the players up by who is muddiest.

A new teammate 15

  • A new player joins your soccer team halfway through the season. Write the first practice from your side. Angle: what do you notice first: the first touch, the shoes or the quiet?
  • A new soccer teammate speaks a different language from the rest of the team. Write the first game. Angle: pointing, a nod, a pass into space. What does the ball say for them?
  • A new teammate can flick a soccer ball up from heel to knee, a trick nobody has seen. Write the afternoon the whole team tries to learn it. Angle: who gets it first, and who is still trying after everyone has gone home?
  • A new teammate joins the soccer team, and the team has to change its shape to fit one more. Write who moves where. Angle: a striker drops back, a defender moves wide. Who complains, and who plays better?
  • A new teammate wants to play goalkeeper, and the soccer team already has one. Write how the two work it out. Angle: a half each, a contest, a new idea from the coach. Are they friends by the end?
  • The captain hands the armband to a new teammate for one soccer game. Write why, and how the game goes. Angle: a birthday, a last game before moving away, a reward. Does the armband change the player?
  • The coach asks you to show the new soccer teammate around. Write the tour: the cones, the bibs, the bad corner of the field. First line: That goal has a hole in the net, so we do not count shots that go through it.
  • The new player on the soccer team used to play for your rivals. Write the first time you pass to them in a game. First line: Last spring she scored twice against us. Today she was open, so I gave her the ball.
  • The new soccer teammate is the coach's own child. Write the first scrimmage. Angle: who passes to them, who does not and what the coach pretends not to see.
  • The new teammate is better than you at your own position on the soccer team. Write the week you find that out. Angle: what do you do: sulk, study or move to the other wing?
  • Write a letter of welcome from a soccer team to a player who starts next week. Angle: what to bring, where the team stands for the warm-up and one team joke to know.
  • Write the first goal a new teammate scores for your soccer team, and who reaches them first. Angle: the pass came from the player who had been slowest to say hello.
  • Write the first time the new soccer teammate is trusted with a corner kick or a free kick. First line: The captain rolled the ball to her and walked away, which is how you know.
  • You are the new player at soccer practice, and you do not know anyone's name. Write the first drill. First line: Somebody shouted Pass, and I passed, and that was how I met the left back.
  • You were the new teammate last year. Write what you tell this year's new soccer player on the first day. First line: Nobody remembers your first week except you. I can prove it.

An opinion to argue 15

  • A soccer team that is winning passes the ball around its own half to use up the clock. Fair or dull? Take a side. Angle: what should the team that is losing do about it?
  • Is a goal from a corner kick the kicker's goal or the scorer's? Argue who should get the credit in soccer. Angle: one player bends the ball in. A crowd of others fights to reach it.
  • Is a penalty shootout a fair way to end a soccer game? Argue yes or no, and offer something better if you can. Angle: is it a test of skill or of nerve? Should a team game end with one player alone?
  • Is a soccer game that ends with no goals a dull one or a great one? Argue one side. Angle: think of the saves, the near misses and the last five minutes.
  • Is goalkeeper the loneliest job in soccer or the best one? Make your case. Angle: one mistake and everyone sees it. One save and everyone sees that too.
  • Is soccer better on grass or on artificial turf? Choose, and persuade the person who looks after the field. Angle: think about the bounce, the mud, the slide and what the ball does in the rain.
  • Is the throw-in the dullest moment in soccer, or a chance most teams waste? Argue one side. Angle: watch what everyone else does while one player holds the ball overhead.
  • Left foot, right foot: should a soccer coach make every player practice with the weaker one? Argue yes or no. Angle: is it better to be very good on one side or fairly good on both?
  • People call soccer the simplest game in the world: a ball and two goals. Argue whether simple means easy. Angle: list what you need to start a game. Then list what you need to be good at it.
  • Should a soccer referee add time at the end of a half, or should the clock stop whenever play stops? Argue one. Angle: who should keep the time: one person with a watch, or a clock everyone can see?
  • Should an own goal count the same as any other goal in soccer? Argue yes or no. Angle: is it fair to the defender? Is there a fairer way to score it?
  • Should beginners play small-sided soccer, with fewer players and a smaller field, before the full game? Take a side. Angle: more touches of the ball for everyone, or less like the real thing?
  • Should soccer have an offside rule? Picture the game without it, then take a side. Angle: imagine a striker who never leaves the other team's goalmouth.
  • Which matters more on a soccer team: the player who scores or the player who makes the pass? Argue one. Angle: follow one goal backward, pass by pass. Where did it really begin?
  • Yellow cards and red cards: is showing a card better than saying it? Argue for or against the cards in soccer. Angle: a card can be seen from the far end of the field, in any language.

How it works

These soccer writing prompts are for stories, scenes and poems more than reports: a penalty told by the ball, a game told by whoever washes the uniforms. No club, league or player is named: the team is the writer's own.

Read the full guide

One penalty kick, many tellers

A penalty is a short story already: one kicker, one keeper, a whistle. The prompts tell it from many places: the walk from the center circle, the keeper's guess, a little brother behind the goal, fifth in line at a shootout. One is a poem of six lines.

A new teammate as a character

The new teammate prompts hand a writer a character and a problem together. The newcomer may speak another language, play your own position better than you do, or have scored twice against you last spring. Two prompts put the writer in the new player's shoes.

  • Give the weather a part. Mud, fog and wind change a game more than a speech does.
  • Let a penalty take a whole page. In a story it can last as long as you like.

Questions and answers

What is a good creative writing prompt about soccer?

One with a point of view. Write a saved penalty from the kicker's side, one day later. Or write a rainy game as the goalkeeper, who stands in the deepest mud on the pitch.

What are some soccer opinion writing topics?

Is a penalty shootout a fair way to end a game? Should an own goal count the same as any other? Is a game with no goals dull or great? Should the clock stop whenever play stops?

Are these soccer writing prompts for kids?

Yes. They suit a school team, a town team or a game at the park with no referee, where someone shouts Penalty and the players have to settle it themselves.

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