The Soccer Geek

As a goalie myself, I find that any offering about soccer goalie tips should encourage  both mental and physical training to be acted upon regardless of the level. Indeed, when we think of goalie practice, we cannot just think about skills and drills. These factors are certainly part of the formula, of course, but they are not all there is by any means.

Having recently read Brad Friedel’s book ‘Thinking Outside the Box’, I now encourage you to also think beyond the constraints of what keeper practice usually involves. Often at junior level the keeper is shifted off between the posts and has the strikers kick balls at him to help them practice. This is fine, but as keepers I think we should keep in mind the broader picture.

Friedel- the amazing US keeper who now plays for Aston Villa in the English Premiership- outlines one way in which you can bring this complete outlook to your game. Here is the ‘quality’ acronym he offers for goalkeeping success:

Quickness

Understanding

Agility

Loudness

Instinct

Technique

Yell to organize

Inspired by his highly thought-provoking account of goalkeeping and life, then, I have written this article on soccer goalie tips to help you to cover all areas influencing your game. The following sections will thus show you in a practical way how you can put the ‘quality’ theory into practice, whilst leading you to some great resources which can only further goalkeeping improvement to another level.

But this would not be a powerful report from the Soccer Geek, however, without a geeky equation!  Here goes:

Talent + Time + Effort = Success   *

As is evident from the ‘quality’ acronym, though, this is not the complete picture. You need to have the RIGHT FOCUS within each of these areas for it to work, so this article sets about SUGGESTING where your focus might be best spent.

Education

Independently committing to educate yourself is arguably a very beneficial step in life. Similarly in goalkeeping there are areas that require knowledge and, more crucially, UNDERSTANDING. Indeed understanding your trade as a keeper is a great first step even if you only think of it as a side-hobby. There are three things I suggest you do to start fulfilling your potential in this area. Whilst reading this list it might also be worthwhile to bear in mind, however, that knowledge should not be a substitute for action. Taking action by practicing goalkeeping is of course critical, then, but theoretically understanding the art of goalkeeping is an ongoing and complementary process.

• Read my basic introduction to goalkeeping on the goalkeeper page of my soccer positions section of this website. This will give you a simple guide that you can follow as it outlines the specific tasks involved with goalkeeping and suggests some ways in which you can start to perform these succesfully
• Read the book ‘Keeper‘ by Mal Peet. This is a novel about a keeper from South America and, although its main focus is as an entertaining piece of fiction, it has some very valuable lessons which can be transferred to your own game. It will teach you the important of INSTINCT, motivation, determination and inspiration.
• Read the book ‘Thinking Outside the Box’ by Brad Friedel. This is about his career and views on life in general, and within this are some incredibly valuable insights into the world and perspective of a goalkeeper. Learning from the best will both inspire you and increase your UNDERSTANDING: a crucial ingredient to your soccer education!

Are You Still With Me? Keep going. The next section may not seem relevant now, but I assure you it ALWAYS applies. Mindset is everything…well, almost everything.

Mindset

Mindset is a massive topic and is considered to be extremely significant in all walks of life from business, to psychology itself, to sport. Consequently, we shall break it down into different sections that you can work on at your own pace. If you feel at all uncomfortable with any of the concepts below then please feel free to move onto the next one- I appreciate that a couple of them can take a while to get your head roun. You may have been instantly expecting physical drills when you came upon an article on soccer goalie tips, but  I assure you the mental training is all a relevant prelude to the following sections.

Subconscious Beliefs

Ever since you were a young child you will have had certain messages ingrained within your mind due to the outside influences in your life. The beliefs you hold about yourself subconsciously as a result of these negative external stimuli (i.e. messages given to you), will thus affect how you think and feel. It is not a massive leap to suggest, then, that the influences you have received will indirectly impact your performance on the soccer pitch- even years later. The beliefs that you hold without even realizing could be very significant and, in certain cases, addressing them could transform your game.

There are various ways in which you can literally re-program your subconscious mind to eliminate your self-limiting beliefs and start introducing positive thought patterns. If you are thinking positively, then it is more likely you will give a solid, positive, goalkeeping performance. Here are 2 areas you may wish to look into:

• Subliminal messages are those which are received beyond the threshold of conscious awareness. This basically means that you don’t actually realize what messages you are receiving exactly. It is therefore an ideal way of scripting your brain with positive affirmations so that your conscious mind cannot reject them out of hand. In our case these messages are specially recorded and disguised with music. You can then listen to them to start changing the beliefs you hold about yourself. This could be general (e.g. confidence) or actually specific to soccer (e.g. teamwork). One CD company you may wish to try for this sort of thing is InnerTalk.
• Try reading books by experts such as Paul McKenna and implement the activities he suggests. Use the CD he gives along with the book. Doing all this will help to re-script the messages in your mind while you are in a state of relaxation. If you’re looking for titles, you may wish to get the ‘Instant Confidence’ one.

Fear

One of the most prominent feelings people can associate with is fear. Whether you are fearing failure, rejection, danger, the scariness of a given situation itself or anything else for that matter, fear can lead to anxiety and enable panic to set in. This is NOT what you want when the opposition have the ball in your penalty area and you and your defenders have the task of clearing the ball away!

Still, I’m afraid I cannot claim to be the master of this complex- I have often experienced intense nerves and from my experience it is at these times that the biggest mistakes have arisen. Getting to grips with fear might be one way in which you use subsconscious beliefs to your advantage: a fearless goalkeeper who does not get nervous always has the opportunity to excel. So try to work on this area as an ongoing process and as a crucial part of your positive soccer mindset. This element was worthy of a sub-section in itself, but try to implement the steps given above in this area too (e.g. subliminal messages/positive affirmations etc.)

Making Mistakes

One of the greatest fears in life, as has been repeatedly expressed by numerous authors and famous experts, is that of failure and of making mistakes. If you are one to dwell on your mistakes and be absorbed by them- perhaps by an ingrained belief that they are ‘bad’ and that you should express your disappointment in yourself- then you will not be ready for your next piece of action. You will focus excessively on your mistakes when you’re meant to be ‘in the moment’ and will thus bring more mistakes about!

Trust me- I have plenty of experience at making mistakes in soccer! The important thing though, as Brad Friedel tells us in his book, is that you are able to lift your head up and get on with things by exercising ‘bouncebackability’ through acceptance and controlling those conditions you are capable of controlling. This is something I believe is an ongoing process for most people in getting right. For our purposes here, this knowledge simply provides a useful reminder that soccer goalie tips should not just be about the goalkeeping itself- you have to work mentally on the mindset that surrounds the art.

Goals

Since this is a soccer blog you might be forgiven for thinking I meant the rectangle thing you shoot into (or stop people scoring into in this case)! Actually, we’re referring to the targets you can set yourself to achieve. This process of goal-setting is a fantastic way of focussing your ambition on specific aims- it will bring about a series of small successes and make you feel more fulfilled more quickly on your long goalkeeping journey.

Obvious goals would include keeping a clean sheet, reaching the half way line with your kicks, getting faster at running, improving your reaction time and shouting more to organize the defence. You will inevitably come up with your own goals, though, and it will be of great benefit for you and your team if you can chase these doggedly. You can practice reaching your goals in your own time or in the soccer goalie training sessions your team may lay on for you.

And do not just take my word for it. This is a very common idea in various walks of life and is even a core principle of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) or ‘the study of human excellence’. It is also something Brad Friedel talks about a lot in his very helpful book, so I suggest you take note. You can have different sized goals that are stepping stones to larger and larger ones. Write down your goals and remind yourself of them. Then work toward them in order to focus your mental energies in the right direction.

To-do lists are basically a simple form of goal setting. Now try to replicate the same process on a larger scale and apply it to your goalkeeping. I’m sure you will find just as much improvement from this as you would from focussing exclusively on drills. When you achieve your goals, even really minor ones, make sure that you reward yourself. To refer to another industry entirely, top sales experts like Blair Singer reveal how worthwhile it is to celebrate all victories. This will give you a positive association with the achievement of your goals and encourage you to take further action in the future.

Are You Still With Me? Keep going. The next section is on Technique which is very important- and perhaps what you came here for in the first place!

Technique

Having covered some of the major themes regarding your mindset, it is now possible to progress to consider the more ‘conventional’ area of soccer goalie tips. In this, you probably expected skills, drills and practice tips from this article. And don’t fret, the place for that is here. Practice of ACTUAL goalkeeping itself is of course vital once you have a positive mindset and a good understanding. We shall thus now consider the role of TECHNIQUE: this represents the ‘T’ in Friedel’s quality acronym. I’ve divided this up logically (hopefully) into 2 sections: skills and drills.

Skills

In terms of the specific skills you should work on when trying to improve as a goalkeeper, I would suggest the most fundamental things are shot stopping, positioning and handling. In match situations, however, you soon realize that a goalie’s job consists mostly NOT of making saves but actually dominating the area. As such you could progress and spend a lot of time on collecting crosses and corners, distribution (e.g. drop kicks), setting walls when facing free kicks, facing 1 on 1′s with strikers and organizing the defence.

Moving from basic to advanced techniques, then, there are various skills and jobs that goalkeepers must master relative to their appropriate level. Explanations of all the major skills are given in the section of this website entitled ‘soccer goalie skills’. Here’s a list of the topics we visit in that section:

• Handling
• Shot stopping
• Positioning
• Distribution
• Corners
• Penalties
• Free Kicks
• Coming off the line

Visit the Soccer Goalie Skills Section for more soccer goalie training

These topics- and your action related to them- will clearly provide the bulk of the skill-work you do, so it is not necessary to go into further detail about this here. For the time being, it’s beneficial to mention some of the drills and games you can do to improve certain techniques, as an extension of the soccer goalie tips already covered here.

Goalie Drills

There are various things goalies can do depending on their level of play. Junior players belonging to a club or school team might participate in small ‘games’, for instance, some of which are listed on the ‘free drills’ section of this website. The most relevant of those listed is Throw, Head, Catch because- as the name suggests- it works on handling. Some of the other games, though designed for outfield players, will also be helpful as they work on your communication and passing abilities.

Alternatively for junior players, with or without a club, you can practice some skills on your own. It may sound rather simple, but a ball and a wall can go a long way! Throwing it against a wall and catching it on the return can help you practice your handling techniques including the W and catching it into the chest. All you need to do to practice your distribution is go to a soccer field and literally practice taking goal kicks over and over: perfect practice makes perfect! This is the same for throwing and drop kicks- try to get the distances further each time by improving your technique. Individual practice can take you forward a long way and repetition works. Just note that a certain regularity of practice schedules, time and some effort are required on your part if you are really serious about personal improvement in soccer.

In addition to these things, there are some specific goalie routines that I’ve been taught by various coaches including young keepers for top level English teams. One such work-out is performing sit-ups whilst having the ball thrown over your head as you lean back. You catch the ball, then use your arms to pull yourself up as you move forwards again to release the ball. Naturally this works on your stomach muscles whilst also improving your handling. Once you’ve got the hang of this you can try doing the same thing but from side to side.

There are other moves which improve on your footwork. Stand at one side of the goal with some cones lined up in front of you out towards the six yard box and penalty spot. Quick-step your feet past the cones (eather weaving in and out or stepping over the top). Then there should be another cone towards the other side of your goal. Sidestep across to it, move round it, and sidestep back to the centre of the goal. Someone should then kick the ball at you, you make the save, get up quickly and move back to the beginning. Then you do it all over again!

There are different variations of this involving different layouts of cones and training ladders. If you would like something that doesn’t require gear, however, it is sometimes sufficient to just get someone to train with you. This can involve putting in practice crosses for you to catch, half-volleying shots at you for your handling skills, and quick-firing shots at you repeatedly for your reflexes and shot stopping. For penalties try facing the WRONG direction. Your assistant will call out when they are about to take the kick and you have to flip round quickly and make a decision as the kick is being taken. This makes penalties even harder than they are usually and can thus improve your reactions.

As has been suggested there are different variations available for some of these practices, whilst some are more appropriate for different purposes (e.g warm-up, light practice). I believe that all of these things put into practice on a regular basis could really help you- depending of course on your current practice habits and level. If you require further drills and training routines, then maybe you could visit JBGoalkeeping.com. This is a specialised site for goalies and will therefore have some more of the in-depth coverage which you may be looking for.

Fitness

You may remember that the ‘Q’ on Brad Friedel’s ‘quality’ acronym stood for ‘QUICKNESS’, and that the ‘A’ stood for ‘AGILITY’. It is evident from the focus goalie’s place on footwork in their warm up drills that these things are important, and this is doubly reinforced by this formula for goalkeeping success. Thus although stamina is not so important for keepers as it is for outfield players, fitness itself is very important- particularly the quickness aspect.

Anaerobic exercise (without oxygen) is not necessary or advisable for junior players, so I would suggest simply jogging (aerobic- using oxygen) is more appropriate to increase fitness in this case. For youth players the introduction of some anaerobic training may be possible, whilst is is a near-necessity for the serious adult player. In this, sprinting between arranged cones with pauses in between is one method.

With sprint work, try to increase the speeds you can gain between given distances. Try to improve your times by SETTING GOALS and motivating yourself to achieve them. The clear relevance of this is that if you are quick off the mark in a match, you can get to the ball before the striker. Meanwhile- if you ever choose to go up and attack a corner- you may need the extra speed to carry you back again!

Conclusion

Rather than giving you a summary of all we’ve been through already, I’d like to close this article by encouraging you to model your game on other succesful players. It has probably become just slightly clear in this article that I admire Brad Friedel as a model professional, whilst I also suggest you look at goalkeeping legends David Seaman, Peter Schmeichel, Gordon Banks and Peter Shilton. I recently wrote a post on the 10 best goalies ever- so it may be worth checking this list out for your improvement. If ‘you become like what you honour’, then put your focus on role models and you will see your game improve. They are the embodiment of many of the themes we have explored in this post.

Modelling is not unusual for it is often taught and is indeed a founding principle of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), whilst the idea of following in other’s well-trodden tracks is a benefit long ago confirmed by the likes of Machiavelli. Commit yourself to emulating human excellence, and your path to development will become easier.

This may have seemed like a fairly unconventional approach to soccer goalie training as it is distinctly psychological in its overall approach, but I believe the skills you need will follow from the firm base of a positive mindset. I hope you have enjoyed reading and you are warmly invited to share your own soccer goalie tips below with a comment.

Recommended Soccer Resources

This may feel like a bombardment of resources- just get through what you can!

JB Goalkeeping

Specialised goalkeeping website

Click here to visit JB Goalkeeping

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Keeper Skool

Specialised goalkeeping website

Click here to visit Keeper Skool

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10 Steps to Soccer Success

My new eBook giving a comprehensive introduction to soccer, including  much more detail on goalkeeping, fitness, psychology, gear, nutrition and more

Click here for more information

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Keeper by Mal Peet

An inspirational fictional book about goalkeeping

Click here to get a copy of this novel

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Thinking Outside the Box

Great Book by Brad Friedel

Click here to get yourself a copy

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Recommended Psychology Resources

Paul McKenna

Paul McKenna is a very popular hypnotist and the UK’s best-selling non-fiction author. As a provider of accessible psychology resources, then, his materials could be very useful to you- including his book on confidence for example. If you are not ‘into’ all this stuff then don’t worry, but if you do want to start increasing your self-belief in order to improve your performances on the field then this may be a good place to start. Visit his site.

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Yaro Starak

Since his blog is about internet marketing and blogging, you may not think it seems all that relevant to you. However if you follow THIS LINK then you’ll be taken to his archives for personal development and psychology. You can learn some principles which are transferable to many different fields- whether this is business, soccer, or tennis (he is a fan). The sporting connection is apparent, therefore, and so is the common need for a right mindset to being successful.

Final Word

Thank you for reading this LENGTHY article on soccer goalie tips. It may not have been what you expected, as I have tried to give a complete outlook on goalkeeping rather than an exclusive focus on the physical training of working on your skills. Please keep in mind the importance of attitude, whilst remembering the ‘quality’ needed by a goalkeeper (including loudness and a sufficient lack of inhibition to YELL). EVERYONE has an opinion, so if you would like to share any thoughts then please leave a comment below.

Have fun,

Soccer Geek

P.S: Check out my recent post on the best goalie saves ever 

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