Not everyone can say they’ve been coached by this legend!
In this short clip, you can see another simple warm up to get the feet moving and get your eye in.
Make sure not to clip his or cross feet while sidestepping. You don’t want to trip yourself up and look like a bit of a div!
A goalkeeper should glide across their area quick and and always be ready for someone to pull the trigger at any moment. The sidestep will allow you to keep your eye on the ball as well as ‘get set’ quickly.
The modern GK will need to be comfortable with the ball at their feet. I believe that we should be involved in outfield drills, particularly in ball possession sessions. The coach expects us to sweep up behind the defence and also be the spare player when in possession. But most coaches don’t involve their goalkeepers in their passing and possession exercises!! Baffles me!!
I’ve been coached by some amazing goalkeeper coaches. They’ve helped me physically, mentally & of course technically. But I’ve also come across very poor coaches.
I believe that, as a top GK coach, you need to be able to create game like situations through your service. What is the point in preparing a session to work on a certain technique if you can’t serve the ball to bring out that technique. That’s why ‘poor feeding starves the practise’. This is where we see a difference in outfield coaching and goalkeeping coaching. If I’m coaching outfield players, I can use a player to demo techniques or use players in a phase of play etc. Yes, I can use other goalkeepers to serve the ball (which will help their kicking) and it is a good idea to use GK’s sometimes, but in general, I will have to have good service as a one to one coach.
Sometimes it’s very difficult to recreate a certain shot or cross consistently. In this video clip, you can see the use of Globas Eurogoal. This machine will serve the ball consistently in whatever way you ask it to. A revolutionary machine, I agree, it’s great for enforcing a ‘top-hand save’ and ‘out swinging crosses’ etc, but I also believe service from the coaches are still vital as it’s game realism.
Personally, I might use the machine for top hand saves or saves that are in a very specific area of the goal but in general, coaches service brings decision making and is more realistic.
How many times do you turn up to a grassroots game and there’s no goalkeeper? Or some kid is in a huff because they have to go in goals? The goalkeeper position has been neglected and I feel we need to slap a bit of make up on it and make it more attractive!!
Even at my club Arsenal-one of the best women’s club in Europe and a club that should be striving because of past success. We still struggle to recruit top level Goalkeepers.
I can verify that we work just as hard, if not harder than other players. Personally, I will train with outfield players and then go and do extra goalkeeping specific training. The new goalkeeper needs to be just as good with their feet as the outfield players as well as all the other jobs expected of us.
In this session you will see an element of:
Fitness
Agility
Power
quick feet
decision making (when to catch, when to parry)
handshapes
Watch Ben Foster’s feet. What he lacks in height….he makes up for in speed.
Long gone are the days of throwing down school jumpers or using a tree and your younger sister as a goal post (which was me). There’s so much resources on the market nowadays it’s like shopping for shoes.
You can purchase basic goals, cones, poles etc to feeding machines that will save coaches from hip replacements in years to come.
Obviously, not everyone can afford thousands of pounds worth of equipment and you don’t need it. You can work on every aspect of the game with just the basics. But I’d like to share some professional goalkeeping sessions with you, so hopefully you can pick up some tips and perhaps help you prepare for some training sessions.
So…..might as well start with the warm up! Here’s a simple way to get the blood flowing and the brain switched on.
Starting with basic quick feet and a small two footed jump over the hurdle. Good for speed/power and all goalkeeper related movement
Try to motivate quick, small steps
Keep head up and looking at the ball
When working around the cones, don’t cross over feet and keep bodyweight forward. This means the goalie is always ready and able to adapt if ball is struck early or gets deflection.
A simple but very affective drill. Why try to change something that works?
Make sure that they are keeping their weight on the balls of their feet, which allows them to be agile.
Another good point is to try keep the feet in contact with the ground as much as possible. If the ball takes a deflection or if playing with those nightmare Adidas Jabulani footballs, the goalie will need to change direction quickly.
Glide shoulder width apart with knees slightly bent and bodyweight forward. You can encourage them to ensure their bodyweight is forward by telling them to keep their head forward.
Always ‘get set’ where possible.
The set position is:
Feet shoulder width apart
On the balls of your feet
Knees slightly bent
Elbows flexed and hands ball width apart
Head steady and slightly forward
Sometimes it’s impossible to get set and the higher the level you play at the less time you have to get set. But it is an advantage as you can move in either direction and react better to any sort of shot.
Quick feet over the cones with a small straight leg jump over the hurdle.
Body weight is always forward, small quick steps –never crossing feet and then a sprint at the end to work on speed and power.
They then move on to calls (left or right), which works on powering off one foot and also reaction speed.
It all looks fairly simple but vital for fundamental footwork
Professional Goalkeeping Sessions 