By Wayne Henderson -
As I have discussed before it is not always the case that a coach has the time or facilities to concentrate on one specific Attribute or skill in one training session, in most cases the goalkeeping coach does not get enough time to allow this. As a result the goalkeeping coach has to make the most of his/her time with the ‘keepers. This means that most drills that we put on are drills that may work 2,3 or more techniques, themes or attributes within one drill.
The drill below will work on 4 different attributes that the modern day goalkeeper will benefit from working on.
1 distribution (from hand)
2 Movement
3 Positioning
4 shot-stopping
Set-up as shown below.
Goalkeepers start with a football in hand.
They throw a sharp accurate throw to the feeder.
Once they have released the ball they move forward to the first cone, then laterally across into the central cone.
As soon as they are past the central cone the goalkeeper must move straight towards the feeder Once into the correct position within the goal, get into a good, balanced set position ready for the feeders strike from the ground.
The positioning of the cones and the feeder is very important, and if done correctly the outside cones should line up with the back post, so that the goalkeeper is covering the full area of his/her goal by covering the left sided cone. As shown in diagram below.
When working on a drill that is covering many different aspects or attributes it is important that the coach emphasises each of the individual skills that the goalkeeper is working on within the drill. In this Drill the individual aspects are, a good quality throw out, sharp controlled movement through the cones, Quick movement into the correct position within the goalmouth, a good balanced ready position when the feeder is striking the ball and as always, good quality handling.
Work both sides of the goal.
The feeder can change the strike to a ½ volley, side volley, ½ volley low etc.
By Wayne Henderson
