When goalkeepers reach their midteens and are serious about the position, they’ll be competing for a starting spot on their club team. Some may be trying out for state or regional teams-or even the national team program. Goalkeepers who have mastered most aspects of the position may find themselves losing out to keepers who have better foot skills. Keepers with superior foot skills expand their team’s options and opportunities in numerous ways.
Goalkeepers can’t pick the ball up with their hands when it’s passed back to them by a teammate; therefore, foot skills make all the difference.
If keepers can confidently use their feet to deal with back passes, they give their defenders a valuable option when the defenders are under pressure. To do this, keepers must be able to settle the ball with either foot and pass the ball over various distances with precision. To illustrate how important foot skills have become, consider this: Goalkeepers touched the ball with their feet more times per game during the 2010 World Cup than during any previous World Cup, seven more times per game.
A keeper with limited foot skills will turn too many goal kicks and punts into 50-50 balls, meaning that the opponent has as much of a chance to get the ball as the keeper’s teammate does. Goal kicks are often the first point of a team’s attack, and having a field player rather than a keeper take a goal kick means giving up a numerical advantage in the field. Punting the ball isn’t just a matter of blasting it upfield. The trajectory of the ball can give forwards an advantage. For example, a well-aimed low punt can find a wide player who has slipped away from her marker.
The goalkeepers who exhibit exceptional foot skills at the college level and beyond are most likely the ones who didn’t specialize in the position too early.
In fact, some of the greatest goalkeepers played in the field as well as in goal throughout their youth careers.
U.S. national team goalkeepers Tony Meola and Tim Howard were both center forwards in high school. That experience helped them in their ability to read the game and to use their feet. Meola’s feet in goal were those of a field player. He was proficient with both his right and left foot, and his skill with his feet played a key role in how his teams played the ball out of the back.
Brad Guzan was a consistent starter in MLS at a younger age than any previous keeper (before he moved to the English Premier League). He played in the field for his youth club, the Chicago Magic, and for Providence Catholic High School, where he earned all-state honors as a midfielder.
These example illustrate why it’s important for young players and their coaches to realize that having the desire and the key attributes to be a goalkeeper does not mean it’s time to specialize. Young players should take every opportunity available to develop their skills in the goal and out on the field.
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