Goalkeeping: When mistakes happen

Like night follows day, and Winter follows Autumn there is another sure fire guarantee in this life – a Goalkeeper will make a mistake!

We put ourselves in a position of zero tolerance where errors are concerned, so it is also a given that we must learn how to cope with them when the inevitable happens.

You will get everybody and his dog come up to you afterwards to say “Chin Up” and “Don’t worry” but these words will make no effect to how you are feeling at that moment in time. If you are like me, then you will seek solace in your own company, reflecting over and over again exactly what happened and tipping yourself into despair once more.

The harsh truth is that life does go on, and in reality no body has died so you must get up, dust yourself down and get on with it. A mistake can focus your mind and ingrain a steely resolve to be the best player on the pitch for the remainder of the game. It is this focus that must rise within you.

A mistake will happen solely because of lack of concentration, so if and when they do, then you must resolve to focus entirely on what is happening in the current time. What is a disaster is when we replay the incident over and over in our head, during live play – we immediately lose focus and instead drift off into our subconscious and history rather than staying in the present. We cannot change the past, but we can affect our future so it is imperative that the mistakes are pushed to the back of our minds until the referee blows for full time.

Allowing any train of thought to carry us away from the present is a real danger to any athlete, but for a goalkeeper can be suicidal. Watch at how many players react to a mistake, I can virtually guarantee that they will then try too hard in the next event. This over-concentration is just as dangerous as the under-concentration that led to the mistake initially.

If you try too hard, then your body is automatically tense and cannot operate as flexibly and naturally as you need to be on top of your game. The mind is what dictates a players performance, not the body, and if the mind is working harder than it should, then the body will behave in the same manner.

It is easy to say, but inherently difficult to do in pushing the error to the very back of your mind and playing in the present. Goalkeepers should be trained in isolating their thoughts; they should be well versed in how to ignore outside influences and therefore can be trained to ignore the internal emotion. If you do not possess the ability to slip into your own personal zone at any given time, then achieving your dreams will become very difficult.

Your Team Mates will expect a reaction, your Coaching Staff will expect a reaction but the Supporters will demand a reaction, and the best reaction is to be human. Kick the post, punch the floor or shout and scream if that is your manner, but as soon as the play is live again then it is imperative that you slip back into behaving like a professional, thinking like a professional and moving like a professional. Get the focus squarely back on what is happening in front of you – that is the only thing that matters at the current time.

Once the game has finished then seize the opportunity to analyse what has happened. I personally would jump in my car and drive, anywhere as it did not matter where, park up and sit there with a notepad leaning up the steering wheel. I’d make notes as to the build up, what emotions I remember, what influenced the error?

I would do this to alleviate my anger for when I got home to see the Wife. It would not have been fair had I taken it all home, though it’s inevitable that some of it would have remained with me as I would not sleep that night, but the main emotion had flowed out of me whilst sitting in my isolation.

This self taught isolation needs to become a goalkeepers best friend, regardless of the environment a goalkeeper needs to have the ability to be on his own