By Patrick Morrison

ATTENTION all young aspiring goalkeepers please listen to this extremely important message; it will give you the best possible chance of becoming the best goalkeeper you can possibly be.

YOU WILL NEVER BE THE NEXT ETHAN RAFFERTY, RORY BEGGAN, SHAUN PATTON, NIALL MORGAN, ANNA CARR, MONICA MCGUIRK, REBECCA LAMBE-FAGAN, etc, etc, etc.

BUT this is a good thing. This is because YOU WILL BE THE FIRST YOU!

One of the most common mindsets I encounter whenever coaching younger goalkeepers is “I want to be the next (Enter Goalkeepers Name Here).”

The young kids want to emulate the heroes and heroines they watch in person and on television. It is only natural that they have a real ambition to play how they see them play and try to copy them to the best of their ability.

It is of course healthy practice to have someone to inspire you in your goalkeeping position. Someone who gives you motivation and pushes you to be the best that you can be. What is unhealthy is adoring them to such a point that you feel like you must play in exactly the same way that they do or thinking that anything that they are currently doing, you must be able to perform to the same level as them.

I have seen a lot of young goalkeepers who have very unrealistic ideas of how they should be playing and have very damaging expectations on what abilities they should be able to perform.

I was coaching a group of young goalkeepers (12-15yo) recently on distribution – that being restarts, kick/hand passing and being in possession of the football. Out of a group of eight goalkeepers, five of them had unrealistic expectations of how they should be performing in this area.

The most common unrealistic expectation was that they were not kicking the ball far enough. When asked how far they think they should be kicking the ball, at their tender age, most of their replies were ‘midfield at least.’ Whenever I probed further about why they felt this they replied, ‘this is where goalkeepers kick the ball to in games.’ To this I asked, which goalkeepers? They replied, ‘the top ‘keepers.’

They were talking about the top goalkeepers that they were watching on TV or in person and forming an unhealthy expectation that they had then forced upon themselves. This resulted in a performance goal that they were never ever going to achieve at their young age.

To reset this mindset and resolve their unrealistic expectations, I queried them further. I asked them how many goalkeepers in their age group had they seen kick a ball to midfield. No-one answered. I then asked them how many kids they thought in the whole country, at their age group, would be able to kick a ball to midfield. Again, no-one answered. I told them maybe one at best, if even.

I reinforced my point that at their age they would not have the physical development yet to be able to kick the ball that far and that in time with regular practice and the introduction of some S&C they would eventually reach their goal. But for now, it is best they accept that they will not reach midfield with their kick-outs.

Immediately after this I paired them up and had them perform kick-outs to each other with the focus on max distance. Once they had a distance pattern emerge, I explained to them that this was there max kick-out distance and also their base level (their starting level).

Every few months they can retest their max distance to see if any improvements have been made and if there has been then this new distance becomes their new base level. By calibrating their kicking in this manner, it enables a healthier mindset as opposed to having an unrealistic goal.

This is just one area that these young goalkeepers were harbouring unrealistic expectations in, and I am confident if we had discussed other areas we would have found even more examples of these expectations.

It is because of these unrealistic expectations that young goalkeepers suffer from severe confidence deficiencies and coupled with the accompanying low self-esteem, you can see why so many young goalkeepers hamper their own development by putting idealistic pressures on themselves.

To ALL young aspiring goalkeepers, please continue to watch your heroes and heroines. Allow yourself to marvel in the feats they perform and the abilities that they showcase but never allow yourself to feel you have to become them.

You can never be them because you are not them. You are unique just like every goalkeeper is unique and every single goalkeeper although their actions may seem similar, they all perform them in different ways using their own unique goalkeeping style.

It is this unique goalkeeping style that you are trying to develop within yourself. By all means use their example to guide you on your journey but do not use their style as your blueprint for success. Your job as a developing goalkeeper is to find your own unique goalkeeping style and this is done by simply performing your skills in a way that suits you best. Simply put, performing as a goalkeeper should feel comfortable and if it doesn’t feel comfortable then you need to change or tweak what you are doing until it becomes comfortable.

Always remember that those heroes/heroines you watch on TV perform so well because they have practiced and trained until they were comfortable with their style. You must do the same, not copying what they do but using it to develop your own goalkeeping style. You can never be them, so ‘Just Be You!’

For all of your goalkeeping queries, please contact me at any of the avenues below.
Email: pmgoalkeeping@hotmail.com
Facebook: @MSoG11
Instagram: @pmx.28;
X: @MorSchGk