This little essay discusses two topics in the motion of a soccer ball (for our friends across the pond, that's a football). First, I'll explain the phenomenon of a ball "skipping" on wet turf. Then I'll describe a peculiar way to kick the ball that often is effective in non-competitive amateur soccer. Terminology: When a ball is moving from left to right, "topspin" means that the ball appears to spin clockwise. "Backspin" means that the ball appears to spin counter-clockwise. In most cases, a kicked ball has a component of top/back spin, and also a component of left/right spin.
Many players are familiar with the way a fast, horizontally-moving ball seems to "skip" when it bounces off wet turf. The bounced ball arrives at a receiving player sooner than expected, and is moving faster than expected. This is not an illusion. Where I live, playing fields are dry throughout most of the year, so wet turf is uncommon. For those of you who live in damper climates, where wet turf is the norm, it may well be that your experience has trained you to do the reverse of what I describe here.
When a horizontally-moving ball rebounds from dry turf, surface friction causes the ball to rotate with topspin. The rotational energy is subtracted from the forward kinetic energy. Thus, the rebounded ball is spinning (or, spinning differently) and moving more slowly. Through experience, players expect this, and plan to receive the ball at a certain place, time, and speed. But when the turf is wet, contact between ball and turf is lubricated. As it rebounds, the ball does not change its spin by much, so there is little loss of forward kinetic energy. The rebounded ball is moving almost as fast as it did before striking the ground:
more translation → rotation
less translation → rotation
Often, the ball rebounds higher from wet turf than it does from dry turf. This is not necessarily caused by a difference in the contact hardness of the ground. Instead, it is largely due to the topspin of the ball after rebound from dry turf. Spin causes aerodynamic curving of the ball's path. In this case, the curvature is downwards. Since the ball does not acquire much topspin when rebounding from wet turf, its height is not suppressed by aerodynamics. Players (in dry climates) do not encounter this situation as often as the dry-turf rebound. Through habit, they anticipate the loss of speed and height when the ball bounces. But on wet turf, less skillful players will not be able to react quickly enough to accommodate the speed, time of arrival, and extra height of the rebounding ball. It is said to "skip."
Note that in most cases, on dry turf the greatest change occurs on the first bounce, because that is when there is the greatest change in ball spin. This is why one-bounce ball reception is most difficult. For the second bounce on dry (wet) turf, the spin (lack of spin) before bounce is about the same as the spin (lack of spin) after bounce. If the ball is kicked with backspin, then change of spin on first bounce from dry turf will be very great. The rebounded ball will be much slower. On the other hand, a ball with enough topspin may increase its speed upon rebound; this is desirable in shots on goal (or in tennis) but usually undesirable when passing to a teammate.
All experienced soccer players know that as a ball moves through the air, its spin will cause it to follow a curved path. The same phenomenon occurs with pitched baseballs. In the case of soccer balls, the normal method of kicking the ball (using the top of the instep) usually produces a predictable spin. The curved path of the ball is also predictable. In a skillful game, most ball movement consists of passing to teammates. It is important that the receiver be able to predict the path of the ball; thus, standard kicking methods are encouraged.
But it is also possible to kick the ball in a scooping motion, striking it at a lower point than usual. The ball is given backspin, which causes it to "float" through the air. That is, aerodynamic effects give a slight upwards push to the ball, partially offsetting the pull of gravity. With the same initial velocity, a backspin ball will reach a higher arc. On dry ground, it will also slow down a bit more when it lands, which may be helpful if the kicker is making a long pass to a running teammate. Of course, if the kicker is trying to blast the ball through opponents, topspin is often more appropriate, just as in tennis.
When I played slightly competitive amateur soccer, most of the time I was left wing. My favorite play was to get unmarked out there (possible only in amateur games), then put a backspin kick so that it would float in front of the goal mouth. Upon seeing the kick, the keeper and other defenders would expect the ball to come down to where they could reach it, because normally kicked balls would do that. But the ball would arrive just a bit higher, and they would miss it. With luck, an attacker could get it by the far post. The trick was that the ball was not obviously too high to reach, so the defenders would stand facing the wing, and they could not turn around to meet the attacker behind them. Had I kicked the ball normally, without backspin, then the defenders would know when the ball would be too high to reach. In that case, they would turn to meet the expected attack, instead of standing or jumping.
The effect is illustrated below. A normally kicked ball would follow the yellow dashed path, and be struck away by the keeper. A ball with backspin initially follows the normal path, but rises through the arc. The surprised keeper cannot quite touch the ball.
This works better in non-competitive amateur soccer than in highly competitive play. It is not just that the defenders are more easily fooled. Rather, non-competitive players often will not aggressively pursue an isolated wing, far from the goal mouth. This gives the kicker the leisure to set the ball and aim. Backspin is more easily applied to a stationary ball. Yes, it can be done from a corner kick; but in that case the result is more likely to depend on crowded action at the goal mouth.