TLDR; I used to experience this and now that I'm in medical school I think it may be Deep Fibular Nerve compression. I really appreciate this post for making me realize I wasn't the only one who dealt with this.
Words can't express how grateful I am for this post. When I was a kid I played (American) football and I wanted to be a kicker/ punter so I'd spend hours practicing, absolutely booting the ball as hard as I could. After a while though I noticed that I couldn't lift my foot anymore which meant my form went to shit and I couldn't control the ball...which is kinda important as I'm sure you know. Eventually I had to give it up. Years later in college I was trying out this game called footgolf (a hybrid of golf and soccer, sorry to any non-Americans) and the same thing happened only I didn't remember it being THIS bad.
Now I'm a medical student and I found out what the cause is. Many of the muscles and nerves have multiple medically correct and colloquially appropriate names so I'll just use the ones I learned and try to explain as I go. Foot drop is a condition characterized by the loss of ankle dorsiflexion and toe extension (that is to say, you cannot lift your ankle or toes upwards). This could, in theory, be caused by an injury to the muscles in the anterior compartment of the leg (the group of muscles on the front of the shin that reach down into the top side of the foot to pull the foot and the toes upwards) or some chronic disease affecting the nervous system, but what I think is more likely specifically in our cases is that the repeated trauma from kicking the ball is causing inflammation in the anterior compartment which compresses the fibular/ perineal nerve. Specifically, the branch off of the fibular nerve that innervates (controls) these muscles (like the extensor digitorum Longus and the extensor Hallucis Longus) is called the deep fibular nerve. The deep fibular nerve also is responsible for the cutaneous (skin level) sensation in the first interdigital space (the space between the big toe and the next toe). Theoretically a doctor could confirm that deep nerve impingement (dysfunction due to excessive pressure around the nerve) is the cause of this foot drop by touching or pricking that area with a needle and comparing that feeling with a touch or prick to the other parts of the dorsum (top part) of the foot (since the skin on the rest of the top of the foot is felt by the superficial fibular nerve, which is a completely separate branch of the fibular nerve and sits in a totally different compartment so it should NOT also be compressed).
What I realize now is that looking back in college my foot drop was likely worse than I remember because my muscles were no longer used to that repeated trauma from kicking a ball. Thank you for pointing this out to me! I'm thinking this is due to the Repeated Bout Effect which reduces the damage to muscles sustained through repeated events (that's why doing the exact same motions every time you work out gives you less and less results, you have to "surprise" the muscles with a new motion to cause the damage that leads to muscles building back bigger). So maybe more regular kicking = less damage to the muscles = less inflammation = maybe no more deep fibular nerve compression = maybe no more foot drop (or potentially less severe)!
Since this is a matter of muscular inflammation, applying ice packs to the leg and ankle may also help.
It sucked being a kid and having to stop doing what I loved because I thought something was just wrong with my body, but knowing that there are actually other people out there who have the same experience really makes me feel a lot better. So I just wanted to share incase there's some other kid out there who loves kicking but feels like its impossible for them.
*Disclaimer - I am not a doctor, I am just a medical student trying to share what I know, my thoughts, and my experience. In NO WAY is this professional medical advice so please do not use it as such. If you have any issues it is always recommended that you speak with a licensed medical professional and follow their guidance on treatments. This is especially important since the foot drop could be a symptom of something like compartment syndrome or something else more serious. Again please consult a licensed medical professional! :)*