Women’s football has grown exponentially over the last few years. I’m not just talking about the number of people who recently showed up or watched the women’s World Cup. That was certainly significant, especially given the fact that the game times weren’t ideal for us in the Western Hemisphere. Despite the fact that many countries have built their own women’s leagues and the game continues to grow, there is a sense that quality goalkeeping is hard to find in many of these leagues.
To me, there’s a very simple base reason why women goalkeepers are struggling in many of these pro leagues and, especially at the international level. Goalkeeping is harder to teach than any other position on the field. I’m not saying that it’s harder to be a pro goalkeeper than to find the new Alex Morgan or Megan Rapinoe. Those two are going to be hard to replace, but we haven’t even come close to seeing a new Hope Solo.
In the last World Cup, I realized that many countries had called up an American goalkeeper with some type of heritage from the country that they were playing for. The US has been training women goalkeepers for longer than any other country on earth, and that’s why they’ve been able to produce better players.
I promised to talk about the disadvantage that women goalkeepers find themselves in, so here it is! The average height of a goalkeeper at the last Women’s World Cup was around 5 foot 8, and at the men’s World Cup, that average jumps to 6 foot 2 or 3. I’ve talked on this site before that taller goalkeepers are at an advantage over us shorter folks, but that doesn’t mean that this stat can tell the whole story.
Is Height the Only Disadvantage Women Goalkeepers Have?
This article is not meant to talk about the differences between men and women in the traditional sense. I know that this is a hot topic that sparks a lot of debate. All that I’m saying here pertains to what I and other people watching female league games can see. Having said this, one of the main issues that I see for female goalkeepers is struggling to time their jumps and dive “effortlessly,” in a sense.
I want to go back to an example that I wrote about in my article about goalkeepers under 6 feet tall. There’s a goalkeeper there by the name of Oscar Perez. He owns the record for the most games played in Liga MX history. He’s certainly the shortest goalkeeper of the modern era in that league. One of the main reasons why he was able to play so long was because he had an amazing ability to jump. At around 5 foot 7 or 8, he could touch the crossbar with his foot!
In my years of watching female games, I’ve seen very few cases of ladies being able to jump around the goal from post to post effortlessly. To me, this is one of the main issues that we still have with female goalkeepers. When you’re a shorter goalkeeper, you’re going to benefit tremendously from being able to make effortless jumps. This is my first idea to improve the quality of women’s goalkeeping.
More Emphasis on Leg Strength & Jumping
A lot of times on this site, I feel that I am talking a bit as an armchair goalkeeper coach. I do work with goalkeepers, but not at a professional level, at least not at this point. From what I see on the field though, this leg strength issue is one that could come to change women’s goalkeeping for the better. Why do I think this is not something that’s being addressed correctly?
The reason why I feel that the situation is not being addressed correctly is because you see it on the field every weekend. I watch a lot of Liga MX femenil games, and the goalkeepers, in general, really struggle with this situation. Other than Celeste Espino, most ladies aren’t overly tall. In fact, many of them could be well under that 5 foot 8 height range. They really struggle with getting up to shots that are in the crossbar range. In my point of view, this comes down to a lack of proper training.
These teams feature professional coaches, so why aren’t they putting a bigger emphasis on leg strength and jumping? It may actually not be the coaches’ fault all of the time. Just like at the gym, if you only had leg day, you probably wouldn’t be able to walk straight any day of the week. There’s not enough time between seasons to be able to put in a workout that benefits their leg strength and jumping abilities. Also, some coaches just get complacent and run the same weekly program. In my book, something needs to be done to improve this aspect of the women’s game.
Who’s to Blame For Women Goalkeepers Lagging Behind?
Can we blame someone for the apparent lack of quality female goalkeepers? I get the sense that in a lot of countries, this is something that’s hopefully going to change. We have to keep in mind that many of the pro leagues even in countries with a rich soccer history, are really young. That means that a lot of the goalkeepers that we see in action today, unfortunately, did not have the chance to grow up in an environment where female goalkeepers were trained accordingly.
Countries like Mexico and Spain for example, are just building their female academy systems. The US is a bit different because girls’ soccer, at least at the amateur, essentially grew on par with the boys’ programs. That was odd because in the men’s department, the US was so far behind all of the top teams in the world at the point however, they were essentially the first to start really betting on women’s soccer.
If we do have to play the blame game on the current situation apart from the lack of proper training growing up, current coaches sometimes just don’t put enough effort into their programs. That’s especially the case at the professional level. This is an issue that extends to other positions and to the men’s division as well. Some teams don’t have coaches who are truly able to teach and nurture talent.
You see evidence of this when we have players get called for a bad throw-in. Players not knowing the rules in certain situations. In the particular case that we’re talking about here, there are juvenile mistakes being made by professional goalkeepers. The problem is no one is helping them correct some of these mistakes. It’s a long process, of course, like we’ve talked about on this site, but it’s something that you have to do.
Is This Something That Can Be Fixed?
There are two ways in my opinion, that the situation can and will be fixed. The first reason why I feel a fix can and will happen is because girls are going to get better training in the youth ranks as the years go on. Teams are aware of the fact that they need to grow their own talent, and therefore, they’re investing in their academy programs that now feature female divisions. This wasn’t the case in many countries, even as early as four or five years ago. Some female academy programs are two or three years old!
Thanks to these youth programs I believe that things are going to look up for female goalkeepers of upcoming generations. In fact, we could start seeing much taller goalkeepers being brought into these youth camps. Going back to the Celeste Espino example in Chivas within the Liga MX femenil division, without trying to put down her talent, there’s no question that her height played a role in her getting selected.
The other fix would be to bring in goalkeeper coaches who can still teach these ladies even when they are already part of the professional ranks. This seems like a long shot honestly, at least in many places across the world. The reason I say this is because, in many countries, we see a true struggle to develop players once they’ve made it to the professional ranks. This is an issue that hampers both the men’s and the women’s divisions.
I do get the sense though that the countries that are building youth programs for girls are going to develop much better goalkeepers. Unfortunately what we’ll probably start seeing even more is this gap between the countries that are investing in these programs and the ones that are not.
Why Female Goalkeepers Are At a Disadvantage – Final Thoughts
To be able to attack a problem, you have to recognize that there is one. This situation with female goalkeepers to me is real, and we see it play out week after week. As I’ve mentioned, there are certain key aspects that I believe are causing the problem. I also get the sense that we’re naturally going to see waves of better goalkeepers in the coming years. That comes down to the new generations’ ability to train professionals at a younger age. Something that wasn’t truly available for goalkeepers in previous generations.
Height can still be an issue that female goalkeepers are going to have to contend with. That’s why I believe it’s imperative that goalkeeper coaches who are working with girls recognize that. These ladies are going to need to jump higher and to feel comfortable on their feet to be able to navigate the goal. Simply put, they’ll need to take more steps than the men to be able to cover the same shots. That means they need to be quicker and lighter on their feet.
This idea of ladies being quicker on their feet is one that worries me. I feel that it’s an obvious fix to some of the current struggles that we’re seeing. In spite of this, there aren’t a ton of female goalkeepers that I see exhibiting the skill set. This leads me to believe that the issue is with the coaches that the pro level. Coaches at the pro level a lot of times feel that it’s not their job to continue to develop players. This mindset is terrible not only for the players but the team and the coach’s career because of it.
