Goalkeeping: If you’re good enough then you’re big enough

There is a lot of heated debate and fallacy regarding the height of a goalkeeper, and it is the eternal million dollar topic with the goalkeeping community. Height was, is and always will be at the forefront of the scouting checklist when professional clubs are looking for a prospective new custodian.

The truth is simple: if you are good enough then you are almost certainly tall enough.

The majority of arguments for shorter goalkeepers come from shorter goalkeepers themselves. It is easy to accept that the reason you never turned professional is that you simply weren’t tall enough – there’s no shame in that, it’s simply a physical reason that you can quickly justify in your head, and also the reason that you can explain to your grandchildren in years to come “I could have played for Manchester United when I was younger, but I was just too short”

Even though I’m 6’ tall I wholly acknowledge the reason that I did not achieve my dream of playing professional level football was that I was not good enough!!

I could easily write down scores of goalkeeping names that would be considered “shorties” but all that would achieve is to fuel the fire of my argument that height is not everything.

In my book ‘Goalkeeping: Looking After Number One’ I penned a chapter named “How tall is he? Can he kick?” This was related to the first two questions that any goalkeeper scout gets asked when he recommends a goalkeeper to a club. This naturally supports my viewpoint that height is not the be all and end all of playing professional level football.

It is merely a factor in the overall picture.

If there were two 16 year olds vying for a scholarship, both of equal standard, ability and potential but one was 6’2” and the other 5’9” – which one would (rightly) get the nod?

We live in an ‘excuse culture’ whereby things are never that individuals fault – my opinion is that players must look at themselves first and foremost to truly discover the reason why they are playing where they are. If you haven’t been blessed with great stature then what can you add to your game to compensate for that? How hard did you work to overcome this failure?

Ask Peter Shilton for instance, what he did when he readily acknowledged that he may not grow as tall as he’d dreamed?

Personally I have not met one single goalkeeper coach that would support a decision to ditch a hugely talented goalkeeper, just because of his height. We can see the ability and potential in our students, and would not, could not and never would (I hope) use the height line as a genuine reason to wreck the dreams of a young goalkeeper.

Yes, there is a whole host of initial luck used up at getting into a professional club in the first instance, so don’t sit back and relax – you need to make it incredibly hard for that club to drop you! If you’re good enough then you are tall enough!!

Goalkeeping: Working with your Centre Backs

These two players are perhaps the most important members of your team for you, the goalkeeper. A dominant pair of centre backs can give the team cohesion and confidence, especially when coupled with a very capable goalkeeper.

What is more confidence inspiring for a goalkeeper, than witnessing his two centre backs taking charge of every attack? It is so encouraging to witness them talking, encouraging and organising as well as dispelling any threat with a well timed intervention.

I have always said that the best goalkeepers are those who have to do nothing during a game. If you liken this to an entrepreneurial businessman whom delegates tasks in order to become a success, a high quality goalkeeper will adopt the same “delegation” techniques to organise his defence.

Goalkeepers should possess a good solid knowledge of his team’s tactics and must be able to “coach” from the back, and by using this knowledge he will be able to successfully organise his central defenders into a formidable unit. They too, must have knowledge and experience of the goalkeeper they are protecting. It is vitally important that at every “game” opportunity in training, this triangle of players work together regularly.

As a goalkeeper, you need to study your defenders style of play, observe which way they prefer to send the attacker whom is running at them, know whether they can win an aerial challenge or prefer to drop off the flighted ball? From this base knowledge, you can then begin to form a strategy to encourage the best from them.

You often get told as a goalkeeper to “Talk more”, but no-one ever tells you what to say, so just remember to be constructive in your communication. Don’t shout for the sake of shouting but have a purpose with your calls – what do you want that player to achieve? If you work with a goalkeeper coach then he should have the knowledge to help you with this, as it is his job to study the patterns of play that build up in front of you; but I know that many goalkeepers aren’t that fortunate to work with a coach so instead it is up to you to take the lead.

Outfield players aren’t the brightest(!) as many prefer to be told what to do as opposed to deciding for themselves. If you can make their mind up for them, then it allows you to then organise the subsequential cover accordingly. Your centre backs will always appreciate a confident, talkative goalkeeper behind them so it is up to you to provide them with exactly that.

Keep your commands short and inspirational, spot the dangers and play within your teams tactics to thwart the danger before you have to make any save.

Goalkeeping: Create your unique selling point

Those of you that are familiar with business concepts, or even simply Dragons Den addicts, then you will be well aware of the term – USP.

In order for someone to buy your product, it ideally requires a Unique Selling Point which sets you apart from the crowd. For many products this is a difficult task in a crowded market place, but those that manage to discover their USP, flourish!

How does this apply to goalkeeping? Simple, find a skill that sets you apart from your competition and chances are, people will start talking about you.

We spend hours and hours fine tuning our all round skills, striving to become the perfect goalkeeper but we also neglect to focus on the one thing that we desperately need – our reputation. What do people know you for?

For me, it was dealing with one on ones or any sort of pressure in the box. I excelled at standing up, making myself big and low and pouncing at the right moment. Delaying the play really was my forte but similarly I was fearless when attacking the ball.

If the attacker had just turned my centre back then one of my strengths was predicting the play and being on top of him as he turned. Quite often it would mean a simple block with my hands behind the ball or even the slightest of finger flicks to take the ball out of his stride, but all of this meant that I generated a reputation for these situations.

It got so that when training, the players saw it as a scalp if they ever managed to beat me during the shooting in the box drills. It is the old school drill (that many grass roots junior coaches deliver religiously still) where the players pass to the coach on the edge of the box, he lays it off and the player runs on to shoot – or dribble around the goalkeeper.

I excelled at reading the lay off, could I make the ground up or should I stay put? Can I make it to the ball first? The players enjoyed the challenge and were always relieved when the other goalkeepers went in (though they had other strengths so it was swings and roundabouts for the strikers at times!).

It would be suicidal to neglect the areas that you are weak on, and these must be worked on, but sometimes because we concentrate on what we are not so good at – we end up neglecting the development of what we actually have the skills in.

It is fun to train at what you are brilliant at, I used to love when we worked on close range striking so develop your best skill, become as near perfect as you can at it and you will soon create yourself a reputation that will follow you through your career. (And please don’t class shot stopping as your USP, I haven’t yet met a goalkeeper without this skill!)

Goalkeeping: Scouting the opposition

If you are fortunate enough to play at a good level, then you will also no doubt have ample opportunities to take in a few of your opponents matches. There are a lot of football leagues now that arrange mid week games, especially as the unpredictable weather makes the fixture secretary pull his hair out towards the end of the season!

I think that any footballer that is serious about his game should watch other matches of his level. He can learn so much about his game by watching others that it is criminal to let these opportunities pass him by. Why wouldn’t you want to see how other goalkeepers behave to discover whether there is anything that you can incorporate into your game|? What a golden learning opportunity in just 90 minutes…

If I was Manager at that level, then I feel that for a player to earn their wages they should also act as Scout for the Club. They could be despatched to watch a potential transfer target, watch a forthcoming opposition or even just to learn his position – all are great ideas to strengthen his Club, and all are ways to develop the player.

As a Goalkeeper Coach, my duty often included travelling to watch the opposition and I was always left with a very vague description as to what the Manager wanted me to discover. I felt as though the opposition were being scouted purely because the Manager thought it was the done thing….

So I developed my own criteria, I noted things that would help my Goalkeeper and therefore the Team. I drew on my memories of playing and clarified what aspects of knowledge I thought would help me, and here are just a few that I came up with:

How did they deliver the Kick Off? (Did they look to play a particular wing for instance?). Obviously in some games, I may have only seen one kick off per team.

Who was the Captain? How does he react under pressure? What happens when things go wrong?

Which players take the corners? Any indicative signals? Where are they delivered into? Inswing or outswing delivery?

Which players take the Free Kicks in final third? Right Footed/Left Footed? Player movement?

What is the movement of their forwards? How is the supply to them? Do the midfield make runs, and where?

I would have a notebook full of scribbled passages of play, and memory jogging abbreviations, all of which I would write up in time to run through with my goalkeepers before the game. I would also discuss with the Team Manager, just to make him aware for his tactical preparations. There is infinite information you can gleam by taking an analytical approach, so rather than a simple “What formation do they play” or “Who are the danger men?” it is much more beneficial to be able to say “They will do this…” and “Number 7 does that...” Be objective with your scouting, and think what details you would want to know if you were playing.

Goalkeeping: Becoming the coach your players deserve

I have taken the lead from a particularly funny Twitterer @LegendaryCoach who tweets things that we all feel. I have shied away from fully expressing my opinions on this subject for fear of upsetting some fellow coaches….but I have swiftly reached the conclusion that there really is little or no excuse for unprofessionalism in your sessions.

There are several things that annoy me when watching other coaches, and these are only my opinion, as I’m fairly certain that I used to do things that annoyed other coaches also. They only annoy me because 99.9% of the time, there are other options available to the Coach, so therefore no excuse…..

Firstly it is an absolute given that you must have prepared the session you are about to deliver. There is nothing worse for a player than being involved with a coach who is clearly “winging it”, you can feel the stuttering of the session and your mind set wanders. All that happens is that, as a player, you are desperate for a game just so that you can enjoy yourself a little.

It can take an hour or so to prepare a session, but this is a sacrifice that we must be prepared to make in order to achieve both our personal, and also our player’s objectives. I got myself into the habit of preparing a week worth of sessions in one go on a Sunday afternoon whilst watching the Italian Football on TV. Throughout the prior week you should be noting down topics to work on, game analysis and goalkeeper’s feedback. This will all give you topics to focus on in the coming week and make planning your sessions that much easier.

Now that you have planned your sessions, secondly is to ensure that your equipment is prepared. YOUR FOOTBALLS MUST MATCH! This is merely my opinion, but a real pet hate of mine is non-matching footballs as it reeks of unprofessionalism and pub football. Whatever level of football, there is no excuse to ignore the simple little details and please scrap the Mitre Calcio’s or SportsDirect bargain balls for your senior players!

Make sure that you have a Ball carry Bag too – ASDA carrier bags are not acceptable! And it is also essential that your footballs are both clean and also pumped up before the session commences. Little things….

I am an advocate of solely using white cones for my sessions. I don’t know why other than I just prefer the simplicity of a single colour; it really irritates me to see coaches scatter a plethora of different coloured cones around to mark out one area – inexcusable and confusing for the players.

Thirdly, your kit should match. Even if your club do not have training kits, or cannot afford Coaching Uniforms then buy yourself a matching brand outfit – you can dictate this, and it will be noticed. Wearing various different brands simply screams “Amateur” to onlookers so pay attention to the message that you send out in the way you dress. I am also harsh in that I judge players and coaches by their boots – Copas and Kings immediately create an impression that they know their stuff, whereas brightly coloured ‘flare’ boots give me an initial impression of “Pretender”. In the same way that a wise man does not need to shout his knowledge, a good coach does not need to draw attention to himself.

And whilst I’m on clothing NEVER, EVER, EVER wear another team’s kit to training or matches. Even if it’s a shirt of the Premiership Club you support (especially if!), it is an insult to the Club and the Players you are working with. Amateur…..

In essence, coach and act as how you would expect your coach to behave and dress. Always start the session at the time you stated, dress appropriately and professionally (no grey or black ankle socks please!) and use good quality equipment. Don’t overlook the importance of planning, and also be prepared to change the drills as you go as sometimes they work and other times the simply don’t!