Goalkeeper Introduction

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Being a goalkeeper is both one of the best and one of the worst soccer positions to play in. Because it is the soccer goalie’s job to stop goals from being scored, he can either be a hero or a villain- loved or hated. But at least one definite perk is that he doesn’t have to run around as much!

Lots of people think about goalies: “They must be crazy; throwing themselves up in the air like that, chucking themselves at people’s feet, having a soccer ball blasted at them from point blank range” but as a goalkeeper myself I can honestly say, I don’t think it’s mad to be one at all…

You get used to getting hurt after a while and just shake it off. If you’ve been diving around after the ball from a young age then you really don’t think anything of it- I mean, it actually becomes quite hard to see how other people can’t chuck themselves on the floor!

And ok you get blamed once in a while, but that’s definitely overshadowed by the praise you get when you win your team the match. But I must tell you that even that praise doesn’t always last for long: you have to play well week in week out to keep it going. And the biggest bonus of being consistently amazing is not actually to get applause from others, its knowing that you’ve played your best, fulfilled your potential and achieved. So being a goalkeeper can be tough gig, but I think it’s fantastic on balance.

So in this page I give you an insight into what being a goalkeeper is all about, I show you what the role consists of and I reveal the absolutely essentiel skills for a soccer goalie to have if he is to develop a complete game. Plus, there’s a list of my favourite goalkeepers who are really great players to learn.

The Job of the Goalkeeper

There is one goalie in a soccer team of 11 and he traditionally wears the number 1 shirt.

Very basically it is his job to stop the ball going in the goal. But it’s not quite that simple because there are loads of different things he has to do in order to prevent the other team from scoring.

The first thing a goalie learns is to physically stop the soccer ball going in the net (AKA shot stopping). So for this he needs to have good reflexes and shot stopping abilities. But it wouldn’t do if he stopped the ball and it then simply bounced off him to another striker who then went and scored, so he has to have good handling as well so he doesn’t gift the opposition another opportunity to score. So for a goalie to catch the soccer ball is ideal, but you will sometimes see goalkeepers tipping shots over the bar or round the post and that’s fine too because they get the ball to safety. What a goalie should avoid is to simply parry the ball out into the danger zone in front of him because then anything can happen.

A soccer goalie can’t just stand in his goal and let the other team attack it though. The goalie has to be alert and decisive so that he can clear up any loose balls around his area: this helps to prevent the other team from getting a shot at goal in the first place. So being a goalie can actually involve quite a lot of coming off the goal line to deal with difficult situations. For example, say a striker is running with the ball and knocks it slightly too far ahead of him- the goalkeeper can then go and slide on the ball to stop him getting it and he has then cleared the danger before the striker could get a shot in.

Sometimes the goalie has to venture outside his area as well. If there are no defenders there to deal with the ball, or if it is easier for the keeper to get there than it is for them, then the goalie will rush out his area and clear the ball with his feet. This requires very good judgement because it’s tough to see how fast the ball is travelling and whether you will get there in time.

Another time the keeper has to indirectly stop the ball going in the goal is to come off his line and pluck corners and crosses out the air. Sometimes this is done with a punch, but it is always better to catch the ball if you can. The goalkeeper has to judge whether he thinks he can reach the ball and if he decides he can, it is crucial that he gets it no matter who gets in his way! This can prevent a goal by stopping the strikers from getting to the ball first and scoring- the same principle as with any time the keeper comes off his line. A great example of a goalkeeper who is good at coming off his line to take crosses and corners cleanly is Jens Lehmann (the ex-Arsenal and German international) who gets a lot of unjustified criticism, but in my view was one of the world’s greatest goalkeepers at his peak!

And the goalkeeper does not just have himslef to worry about. He also has to communicate to his defence who help him prevent goals from being scored. He has to organise them into a wall when there is a free kick just outside the box, he has to make sure they are marking the opposition or standing on the line by the post at corners and he has to call to them in open play to tell them what to do and to tell them what he is going to do e.g. he says “KEEPERS!!!” when he’s going to come off his line to collect the ball. This gives the defence a clear instruction to leave the ball to him.

Anyway, the job of the goalie does not stop there- oh no! He also has to do other things on top of preventing the other team from scoring. He can offer his defenders an option to pass to for instance. He takes goal kicks for another. But perhaps more importantly it is also his job to set up attacks. If you watch David James play (another excellent goalkeeper who is the England number 1 as I write this) his distribution is excellent. He has a huge throw so he can pick out people in the opposition’s half and get the team from defence to attack in an instant.

So that’s the basic summary of what the job of a goalkeeper involves. That’s the theory- that’s what they have to do. If you want to be a goalie or simply improve your keeping skills then you can visit the goalkeeper skills page

What Makes a Goalkeeper?

Here’s a quick run through of some of the different attributes a goalie should have to succeed.

- communication

- awareness

- vision

- decision making

- determination

- reading of the game

- courage

- consistency

- strength

- flexibility/reflexes

- agility

- accuracy

- presence

- confidence

- good hands

- height (ideally)

- quick feet

- control

- balance

- speed

- positioning

Role Model Goalies

Different people may have different views about who the best goalies are, but here’s a list of my favourites:

- David Seaman (England)

- David James (England)

- Peter Schmichael (Denmark)

- Jens Lehmann (Germany)

- Brad Friedel (USA)

- Edwin van der Sar (Holland)

- Gordon Banks (England)