The goalkeeper’s role is crucial in football, being the last man in defence so to speak. A well-trained and skilled goalkeeper can be an asset for any team and a deciding factor in the outcome of many games. In this post, we introduce the training for a goalkeeper, touching upon the warm up, building ball familiarity, 1v1 exercises, and culminating in a 3v3 game situation.

We begin with drills to increase ball familiarity, with a simple catch and throw between the goalkeeper and a teammate. Progressively increase the height, going from close-to-the-ground throws to waist-level and finally head-level.

Next switch to throwing the ball from above the head in a downward angle, and collecting it after one bounce. You will need to adjust your position to catch the ball after the bounce. Now throw the ball downwards with force such that it lands midway between the two players and bounces high above the head of the other player. Ensure you catch the ball at the highest point possible.

Being dynamic on your feet is an important skill for a goalkeeper. Practise a front roll and sideways catch exercise, which you might find a little difficult at first. You should try this with a straight throw as well as with a bounce. Once you’re comfortable with this set of drills, switch from throw and catch to kick/shoot and catch. This increases the pace significantly and prepares you to stop an attacker from scoring in a game situation.

We then go back to the front roll and catch exercise, but this time with kicking the ball instead of throwing it. Next, we have the attacker running forward, towards the goal, tapping the ball once, and then shooting at goal with the goalkeeper blocking/catching the ball. The goalkeeper needs to practise narrowing the angle – stepping forward so the attacker has less room on either side to slip the ball into the goal.

Now we have a 1v1 drill with goalkeeper and attacker in close quarters. The attacker tries to dribble, evade and shoot at goal, while the goalkeeper tries to tackle and block his attempt. Goalkeeping is a physically demanding role. So, it’s important to have two goalkeepers for these exercises, with a switch after every 4-5 shots to allow some time for catching their breath.

Confidence is an important aspect of goalkeeping. When you’re continually successful at blocking goals, you will feel confident and that will reflect in your play. The final part of this training focuses on a game situation (3v3) with 3 attackers and 3 defenders, apart from the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper has to coordinate with the defenders to prevent/block the shots at target.

In the next post we progress to defending against crosses from an attacker. This is a very important training for any goalkeeper as a cross can be easily converted into a goal with a well-timed header, or it could even be crossed straight into the goal. Keep reading and practising to improve your goalkeeping skills in no time.