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Whenever a player kicks the ball, he may not realize it, but he's doing several physics related calculations in his head. The player is constantly deciding with what degree of force they need to hit the ball so that it goes in the desired direction with the desired trajectory and force they want. Whenever a kick is made, a portion of the foot's momentum is transferred to the ball during the collision. This compresses the ball for a short duration immediately leaving the foot, so the ball isn't perfectly round.

 What are the physics behind kicking a ball?

To begin with, the reason soccer players kick with their laces rather than their toe is to distribute the force over a larger amount of surface area. This helps control the direction of the ball and also helps keep the players from getting injured. Such a massive force imparted directly on the toe could be problematic for a professional player.
More importantly, a soccer player has to have a good idea of how much the ball will accelerate in the opposite direction of it's motion, as a result of air resistance. He's also thinking about how fast the ball will drop as a result of gravity. Although he isn't picturing the actual numbers, he's essentially using kinematic equations. d = vi * t + 1/2 * a * t^2 is approximated in his mind so that he knows how hard he'll have to kick the ball so that it makes it to it's desired location. And if the player could see the world through numbers, "R = (Vo^2 * sin 2 theta) / g"  is a trajectory equation that would be very useful if the soccer player was trying to chip the ball, which is when the ball is kicked at a sharp angle so that it flies over the opponents. And through physics, since we know the gravitational constant of Earth, and we can measure the mass of the ball, we can calculate how long it will take for the ball to hit the ground after it has been kicked.