Welcome
to the first edition of my goalkeeper’s blog. (Clever title forthcoming)
As a
goalie with over 20 years of playing experience, I’m excited to use this
platform to offer advice to parents, aspiring young goalies and their coaches. Here
I’ll discuss all things goalie, including theory, strategy, drills, coaching
tactics, etc.
This particular article is directed
at coaches, parents and players contemplating a position in net. I intend to
cover a fairly common mistake that coaches make when making a decision about
their teams goalie. This is a subject that has been a sore issue of mine for
years, and I am very excited that I finally have a medium to turn it into a
point of discussion that will potentially reach the eyes of quite a few
readers.
Coaches, I’m going to make a safe
assumption that one of the more frustrating areas of coaching your youth soccer
team has been how to deal with filling that pesky goal keeper position.
Parents, you’ve noticed your child’s
exceptional ability to make saves and give his/her team a winning advantage.
Players, you caught the goal
keeping bug. To you making a clutch save feels just as satisfying as bending a great
goal into the upper 90. The desire to turn yourself into a keeper is hard to
describe and difficult to ignore.
But, let’s consider a few things
first……
To state the obvious, having a
strong keeper in net is one of the most important elements of fielding a
successful team. Without a capable pair of hands guarding your net, it is
inevitable that more goals will be scored, and subsequently, more games lost.
Furthermore, without confidence in their keeper there will be added psychological
stress put on the defenders and mid-fielders to keep the ball out of their 18.
This phenomenon will inevitably domino and alter the play of your entire team.
There aren’t many coaches, players
or fans that would dispute my claim that possessing a strong dominion in your goal
will help you win games. So, when one of your young players displays some
talent and desire to fill this position, you breathe a sigh of relief and get
this youngster some full time goal keeper training.
Problem solved, right?
WRONG!
All too often I observe youth soccer
teams, some as young as 8, employ the use of a full time goalie. Typically this
isn’t just the coach selecting a random player to play net. More often than not,
it is because a player has a genuine interest in the position and makes an
earnest request to play there. Should that player show some talent guarding the
goal, it’s usually an easy choice for the coach to continue to use this player
in goal at a full time capacity.
I opine that nothing could be more detrimental
to a player! If a coach makes the decision to train a footballer as the team’s
primary goalkeeper before that player has established strong, fundamental
skills, he or she can cause tremendous detriment to the development of that
player.
As such, there are three major areas
where I feel these players typically suffer.
1.)
General
foot skills/ball control. A good
goalkeeper must develop foot skills! Poor
ball control begets a lack of confidence. A lack in confidence begets bad
decisions. Bad decisions beget conceded goals. (Eh hem…David de Gea)
2.)
Striking
the ball properly. I was recently involved in a conversation with a coach
from a local college who told me that none of his goalies were able to clear a
goal kick past mid-field. He also told me that these players were terrific
athletes, but were never properly trained how to strike a ball. The neglect
afforded to these goalies by not teaching them fundamental skills, such as
striking a ball, is unacceptable.
3.)
The
vision of an outfielder. Playing the outfield has a much different “feel”
in both tempo and strategy. It’s important for ALL players, including goalies,
to understand the perspective of an outfielder and learn how to “see the play”.
This is nearly impossible to teach a player without giving them the proper playing
experience in that position. For example, understanding what a striker is
thinking will help a goalie predict what an attacking player’s next move is. Remember,
good decisions result in making great saves, and the ability to predict a
striker’s attack will save many goals.
To strengthen my argument, I’d like
to offer a quick, albeit (all too American) analogy about goalkeepers.
Let’s liken our position to a baseball
pitcher. Both positions are highly specialized roles in a respective sport that
fields a large team of players who operate in similar capacities. These roles
require their perspective players to dedicate a large amount of time practicing
that role’s particular nuances away from their teammates.
Unfortunately, this focused
dedication to a specific craft has an untoward effect on the player’s ability
to participate as any other role on the team. Ever watch a pitcher try to hit a baseball?
Pretty sad stuff! Heck, these guys can’t even run the bases! Good thing for
them, they aren’t expected to. But this point begs me to outline a major
difference in the analogy of these positions.
In baseball, pitchers don’t
dedicate all of their time to pitching until the college level; even at this
level they are expected to perform offensively to some degree. Young pitchers
will generally develop their ability to pitch, but not at the expense of the
fundamentals of the sport. In my opinion, this is absolutely the correct model
for all youth athletics.
So why are we making this mistake
in developmental soccer, and what can we do to fix it?
The first question isn’t an easy one
to answer, but it is important that we recognize that the problem exists.
Perhaps the issue arises simply out of the sheer importance a decent goalkeeper
is for a team. The collective need of a team can be a powerful motive on the
decisions a coach will make. But we need
to remember that the development of individual skills is far more important
than simply winning games.
The solution is simple.
First, as mentioned, we need to be aware that
keeping a player off of the field in this manner hurts their future as a
player. Next, to state the obvious, don’t concentrate a player’s duties to goal
tending until their fundamental skills are adequately developed. The maturation
of skills is unique to the individual player, but generally speaking, dedication
to a career as a goal keeper should begin sometime in early high school.
As an aside, this article is NOT
meant to discourage young footballers from learning to be a goalie. Goal
tending is an extremely rewarding craft that is quite difficult to master. I
applaud your decision to dedicate yourself to the most difficult position on
the pitch. Just be mindful to keep from neglecting your other skills. Your
future self will thank you.
Thank you for reading my mad rants.
Many more to come…….CHEERS.
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