By Danny Carvalho,
I truly madly deeply admire Keylor Navas’ capacity to reach for balls apparently too far to stop. He is amazingly explosive between the bars and underrated in my humble opinion. This practice was designed to have your goalies make miracles like a UEFA Champions League champion!
Warm Up
Have two cones of different colors aligned with the post and parallel to the penalty kick spot. Right next to the goal posts, have these colors diagonally apart as shown in the diagram below. The coach runs to one of the colors as the cue. The GK reacts as fast as possible running to the correspondent post and then stops the shot on the opposite side.
Activity 1
The coach is going to take six shots in a row, aiming for opposite sides of the goal. The GK must stop it!
This one is inspired by a practice I’ve seen the legend Dida on it. Click here to check it out.
Activity 2
This next one is pure insanity for the GK. I like to call it “I dare you to stop 3”!
Have two goalkeepers positioned each at opposed corners of the six yards. Have a third player at a little bit out of the eighteen yards. All three players with a ball. On the coach’s command, #1 takes a shot shortly followed by #2 and then #3 comes dribbling for a 1v1 against the GK.
Activity 3
I can’t help but end this practice with this fun and challenging drill called “Soccer machine gun”.
Have as many GKs as possible positioned to take shots. Include yourself! A bunch of balls aligned at the edge of the box. On command, the whole crew starts taking shots in sequence. GK must stop as many as possible.
By Danny Carvalho, DOC at Corinthians Campinas Youth Club, Brasil
