How to become a tactical goalleeper?

Getting up on a Sunday morning in 6 degree weather is tough for the uninitiated. When you’re a young goalkeeper without any formal training it can be very daunting understanding basic technique let alone how to implement tactics during play. You thought gettng up in the cold weather was tough…that’s the easy part of the learnng curve.

I’ve been implementing a very progressive structure into my training programs with my academy keepers that focuses on basic technique followed by tactical play. You guessed it…play means having some fun!

So whilst the cold might bite at their noses, getting these young goalkeepers into a progressive and fun game based training scenario helps build up a platform to enhance basic technique.

There are a few key points to tactical goalkeeping.

Control: One of the key elements in becoming better tactically as a goalkeeper is having a solid understanding of your surrounding area. Visualizing key aspects of your goal area, provides a map of where various attacking scenarios will take place.

This provides the goalkeeper 2 key aspects of their plan. 1) Understanding of their positioning for numerous attacking scenarios, and 2) Knowing where to position their back line and communicate to their defenders where various weaknesses in the chain are located so that his/her defense can recover effectively.

Control also entails a chain of communication that if delivered effectively and consistently, travels up the ranks from the back line to the front line extremely quickly. All sounds military-like, though you’d be surprised just how many teams can end up in the lurch from poor communication, or a lack of understanding between players. Vitally imporant is communication drills throughout a training session.

At a youth level, communication training could be as simple as the following backpass drill where you have 1 wide server, another wide receiver, and another attacking player whom receives the ball from out wide to provide a shot on goal (standing in or around their 18 yard box). You can easily add a progression where we add another attacking player whom presses an attack on the goalkeeper after the ball is played to him/her.

(The above image is copyright of Keeper-Skool.com, 2009, all rights reserved).

With the above scenario, in each case the goalkeeper would call for the ball from the sever and then out to the receiver. Server and receiver both must communicate with the goalkeeper so that he/she is “aware” of where each player is positioned as well as where they are standing in the goal …this begins a process of “tactical awareness”.

Posession:The above training drill also provides a way for the goalkeeper to understand how to handle possesion. Here, I am not talking only about how they receive the ball (which is vitally imporant), but I am talking about how they hold the ball, and distribute effectively for clearance above and beyond their own half of play.

You’ve probably heard a thousand times over, on this blog and elsewhere, this notion of the “modern” goalkeeper. What the concept entails, (especially in light of the backpass rule), the goalkeeper has become a utility player, that must also aid in supressing the ball when their is defensive pressure, and aiding attack in quick distribution.

With this notion of utility, the team as a whole begins to focus on “leverage”. Here, the goalkeeper becomes a vital anchor in situations of repeated attack, and helps build attack from their defense to outward play. Legendary goalkeeper coaches, Frans Hoek and Maarten Arts call the latter “attacking” goalkeeping.

Possession therefore is a tactical element of goalkeeping. If we take the above drill, we can now have the goalkeeper feed the ball high to the server, receive the ball back with the hands, quickly distribute with their hands to the reciever, receiver passes the ball out to the attacking player whom again takes a shot at the goalkeeper. The aim here is that with the ball at their hands the goalkeeper can control the pace of the game within their 18 yards, guide their defence to position themselves favorably before the ball is pushed out quickly into play again.

Quick distribution: Nothing is more potent than quick distribution after the goalkeeper recovers the ball from an attacking play against their own goal. With this in mind, the goalkeeper should always look to take an advantage in progressing play quickly after they have received the ball. Though, possessional play can also come into effect as the goalkeepers wide players may not be ready to receive the ball. In these cases the goalkeeper should think cautiously before pushing the ball out into play.

The following set play play drill can be utilized, where we have two goals set up (one on the goal line, one on the half way line) with two attackers (tending to the opposing goal) and two defenders. In this situation a goalkeeper receives the ball from a corner (unopposed, then mix in an opposed situation), and pushes the ball out into play quickly to their widest defensive player once receiving the ball (either left or right). The wide receiver can then take the ball and try to pass the two opposing players and goalkeeper to score.

(The above image is copyright of Keeper-Skool.com, 2009, all rights reserved).

The above drills are examples of the forthcoming goalkeeper training guide from Keeper Skool, to be released by the end of 2009. For exclusive interviews, goalkeeper fitness articles with leading experts, videos and written training drill programs sign up to Keeper Skool Certified by clicking here.