Goalkeeper Talk

Riding through the pain

I’m talking about PHYSICAL pain! Maybe I will post about the psychological element of the goalkeeper later. For now it’s important to realise that taking a knock (especially to the head) can lead to affecting your positioning, strength and ability during a game. If you’ve played in goals before you will have had the experience of being knocked senseless for a brief moment, maybe when being challenged for a cross, or diving in at legs, or maybe doing this -

Have you ever had a paper cut and not felt it? Only until you look down and see the blood, suddenly it starts hurting? The reason is our brain can only focus on a certain amount of things at any one time. As you read this now, you probably aren’t aware of the feeling of your feet on the floor (except now you are because I just mentioned it). If we were aware of everything all the time, we’d end up going insane.

How does this apply to goalkeeping?

Your focus needs to only be on a few things. Where is the ball? How is my team’s positioning? How is my positioning? From those 3 questions you learn to command your defenders & track and move into position. So next time when you get that bang on the head, immediately your brain should jump to asking “Where the hell did the ball go?” & “Am I in the right position for the save?”. Getting into the ‘goalkeeper zone’ is very important & every professional keeper does it.