No doubt, keepers need special skills. But how segregated their training should be is worthy of a debate.
Across America, youngsters are making summer plans. Many will head off to soccer camp. Some go with their teams, others with a few friends. Chances are that soccer players who happen to be goalkeepers will not go with them.
Today, keepers have their own camps. That makes sense. After all, they play a specialized position, and most coaches – even at the best camps – do not really know what to do with them. What could be wrong with a goalkeeper camp?
According to Peter Gooding, the entire concept is wrong. The former president and senior staff coach of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, who has coached for more than 30 years at Amherst College, rejects the notion that keepers are fundamentally different from field players.
“A full week at goalkeeper camp creates the potential for young players to believe that throwing yourself around in the net, making spectacular saves, is good goalkeeping,” Gooding says. “Look at Europe. Their keepers are relatively conservative. The hallmark of a good keeper should be that you don't notice him – until he comes up with the big save when he absolutely has to.”
Growing up in London, Gooding saw boys on the street “so skillful they could make the ball talk.” However, in game situations they had no clue how to play. Gooding likens that to American keepers who master skills such as shot-stopping – and look acrobatic doing it – but do not know how to position themselves correctly so they would not have to stop the ball in the first place.
Gooding says one cause of this is that keepers are not being trained as part of a team. Instead, through overemphasis on technical training and underemphasis on tactics, they are being taught “an unreal game.”
Some 20-30 years ago, Gooding says, the United States began producing excellent keepers. Part of the reason was that Americans had grown up playing hand-eye coordination sports; part was because keepers then learned soccer on their own, alongside their teammates.
About 15 years ago, Gooding continues, he first noticed keepers diving when they did not have to, sprawling late instead of taking two early steps to cut down angles. Around that time, he says, he could tell which players at his own camps had also attended goalkeeper camps.
“They weren't necessarily the good keepers,” he notes. “They were the ones who tried to make it into a spectacular position.”
Another trend that bothers Gooding is keepers who yell at teammates after a goal has been scored. “Everyone should feel responsible, including the keeper,” he says. “Some of that attitude might come from the keeper not feeling like a full part of the team.”
While acknowledging that top goalkeeper instructors, men he respects such as Tony DiCicco, Dan Gaspar and Joe Machnik, have done a good job of integrating foot skills into their camps and curriculums (particularly after FIFA introduced the limited pass-back rule), Gooding would like to see keepers become “almost indistinguishable from the rest of the team.” That is hardly the recipe for separate goalkeeper camps.
Surprisingly, Gaspar agrees. In fact, he says, that is why virtually all of his 18 Star Goalkeeping Academies operate at the same time and site as field camps.
“Times have changed, and we need to change, too,” Gaspar says. “Especially after the [pass-back] rule change, we need to view goalkeepers as full soccer players. So we spent plenty of time training on the necessary goalkeeping skills, but then we put them into real-life situations so they can apply those skills.”
DiCicco, the WUSA commissioner and former U.S. women's national team coach, runs SoccerPlus Goalkeeper School, also in conjunction with his own field camps.
He says, “I have the highest respect for Peter, and his argument was valid years ago, when we just taught technique. But we're way beyond that. Today we focus on mental skills, communication skills, recognizing tactical situations and options. There's a lot more going on than shot-stopping.”
Still, DiCicco, who guided the U.S. women to a World Cup and an Olympic title, defends goalkeepers as special people.
“Goalkeeping is a culture, for players and [camp] staff members,” he says, “It's a unique position. You don't spend a lot of time with the ball in a game, but you're under constant pressure, all the time. It takes a certain kind of person to handle that, and that's why a goalkeeper camp concentrates on things like discipline, setting plans and taking action.”
He points to alumni Matt Reis, Jeff Causey, Tracy Ducar and Saskia Webber as proof that goalkeeper camps produce excellent players.
Gaspar adds one final thought. “Tony DiCicco is not the best goalkeeper coach. Joe Machnik is not the best coach, and Dan Gaspar isn't the best. The game is the best coach. All we do is provide goalkeepers with the tools, and then let them play the game.”
by Youth Soccer Letter Editor Dan Woog