Football Shot 50D

It also looks a tad overexposed - did you shoot in Raw mode? You may be able to tweak the exposure slightly to stop those white socks from being so blown out. Also the black/dark colours are coming out as grey so first of all try dropping the exposure, and you might need to tweak the curves to give it a slight contrast boost.

I really like how you've captured the guy with the ball, it's a shame we can't see the face of the guy behind him.

I'd also straighten the horizon and crop tighter at the sides. Hard to be critical about sharpness at the size posted, but seems ok sans L (there's a single pixel very highly contrasted in the necklace, may be partly from sharpening but there's no sign of general oversharpening - all good). Shutter speed doesn't seem too slow - anyway, sometimes a little blurring here and there can even add to the dynamism.

Cheers,
Tony

Nice capture of the action. As mentioned, it looks overexposed. I would sacrifice the shaded areas of their black shorts and drop the exposure in Photoshop. Also, straighten it out. Sometimes a tilted shot can add dynamism to an image. In this case, however, if you straighten it out it will further heighten how angled over he is, thereby adding power to the image. You could probably crop a little on the left. I don't think an L lens would have given you that much more on this shot. It does appear that the black player's right knee has the focus. So his face is a little soft. But you rely on your camera's autofocus for a shot like this.

Thanks for the pointers!!! Here is another one, just cropped.
Let me know if this one looks better.

^ Now this one tells a story! Well done

Now what I have learned is, you do not always need the best lens to capture the action. In my opinion you did a very good job. From what I can see everything looks clear, yes a bit over exposed, but it still looks good. It just takes a little trial and error.

Yep... I would darken the image by maybe 5% but otherwise it looks great. With action shots like this, try to keep your shutter speed as high as possible.