Playing goalkeeper as a young kid can be a challenging endeavor. First of all, it is a position that’s going to get boring for some kids, particularly in games. Then there’s the other end of the spectrum as well. It can be mentally exhausting particularly if you’re doing a lot of losing early on. Without a doubt of these youth soccer goalie tips that I’m going to be giving out cover the technical aspect. I don’t want to forget about the mental aspect of things either. It is a part that at times parents can have a hard time understanding. I’m going into my 30s, and my parents still don’t want to say when I tell them I’m sad because I had a bad game. So if you’re a goalkeeper parent I’ll help make sure that doesn’t happen to you.
Getting back to the game aspect of things, there are usually key things that you can work on that are going to allow you to get more saves. Make no mistake about it, the game is more fun when you make more saves. These tips hopefully are not just going to help you in the short term, but in many respects they should also create certain habits that ultimately will allow young goalkeepers to grow. In fact, plenty of the issues that I see with young goalkeepers is that their technique is not being correct at a young age. So you grow up repeating something that’s wrong, and the older you are, the harder it gets to correct fundamentals. Here we go with a couple of youth soccer goalie tips then.
Ball Catching Drills Against The Wall – Catching Shots Cleanly Equals Less Scoring Chances For The Other Team
You want to get used to catching the ball at different angles, and different methods. What I mean by different methods is for example knowing how to put your body behind the ball while still making the catch. Particularly I’m talking about not necessarily low running shots, but those coming in at the knee level. You want to train your body to go down and make a clean catch. Also of course, it’s super important to have good hands so that you can make clean catches. Whether that’s in a situation where you’re cutting a cross, or it’s a direct shot on goal. Making those clean catches is key towards giving up fewer goals because you’re not giving up second chance opportunities.
Throw the ball against a wall with all of your strength and just catch it back until you get bored. One of the best ways to keep things interesting is like I mentioned to put yourself in different positions to have to make different types of catches. This could be something that can get boring, but if you make the commitment to maybe catch 100, 150, 200 balls every single day at home you’re going to get better. You’ll be more comfortable trying to catch the ball cleanly in games which a lot of times is the real issue. It’s not that you don’t know how to make those catches. A lot of times the problem is that you don’t feel the confidence to even try. If you work on this constantly the confidence level is bound to go up.
Diving From Different Angles – Make The Drills Game Like
This is something that you may need help with. Parents if you want to make the game more fun for your kids help them out with these drills. If you’re a goalkeeper it’s because you like to dive all over the place. What you want to do here is come in towards goal at different angles and take all sorts of shots. I had the luxury that we would play like this as kids, and through playing you’re developing your skills. The problem for a lot of the modern goalkeepers is that you no longer have that playing time outside, so all of it has to be encapsulated into training.
I remember for example going to the park with my dad on the weekends, and we would just be playing. He would end up taking shots from all different angles, and I’d have to find the perfect spots to stand to make sure that I had a chance to make a play on the ball. A lot of times with drills goalkeeper coaches make it too mechanical. Only working on shots from set angles. In a game, and just playing around shots can come from anywhere. As a goalkeeper you essentially have to learn to react. That may sound counterintuitive, but what you’re doing is mimicking shots that you may see in games. When you see it in a game you’ll know where to be. Play around, take shots from anywhere, and maybe stop to correct things if you see that you’re having trouble.
Your Bravery & Toughness Are Going To Be Tested
Does being a goalkeeper hurt? Yes, the fact of the matter is sometimes it does. When you get hit in the face with the ball or someone accidentally kicks you on the ground you could suffer the consequences. This is not a popular thing to talk about especially with parents and this whole trend about keeping athletes safe. It’s not that I am advocating for violence at any point. Actually as I mentioned most of the injuries, and the plays where it literally does hurt to be a goalkeeper are situations that you can’t take out of the game. After all this is a position in which the goal of the other team is to kick the ball past you. A lot of times to do that they’re going to kick as close as they can to you, as hard as they can.
I also don’t want to shame anyone who once stood between the sticks, and realized this isn’t for me. When it comes to youth soccer goalie tips though I would be selling short if I didn’t say that it’s actually a good idea to realize that you maybe don’t want to be a goalkeeper early. For the most part goalkeeper tends to be the most dangerous position on the field. The saying goes that goalkeepers have to put their face where other people put their feet. Of course, there are ways to protect yourself and all that, but don’t kid yourself it hurts to be a goalkeeper sometimes. It’s ok if you realize hey, I’m not willing to pay the price. Better realize that early so you don’t waste your time.
Don’t Forgo Regular Ball Control Drills With Your Feet
If you’re a goalkeeper it’s more or less natural to want to focus on specialized drills to improve your skills between the sticks. That doesn’t mean though that you can completely forgo the traditional part of the game if you will. Being at least decent on your feet is going to allow you to feel a lot more comfortable when you get the ball passed back to you. Your teammates are going to be more trusting and will pass the ball back to you more often. Another thing that you’re going to want to do is work on both goal kicks, and punts. You know how kids and parents that like baseball are going to be playing catch? This is something that you can also do if you’re a soccer father/mother and son/daughter.
Stand at a distance from each other and practice those passes back and forth. The same thing with goal kicks and punts. If you’re going to be the one that’s going after the punts and goal kicks, be patient with your goalkeeper. Just know ahead of time that if you haven’t practiced this before there’s a chance that accuracy is not going to be a strong suit for a young goalkeeper. You do need to work on this though so that you can add an element to your game. If you feel more comfortable playing outside the box you’re going to be able to impact the game a lot more.
Talk About Mistakes Without Coming Down On Young Goalkeepers
I said that I was going to be giving out tips on the psychological aspect of the game. To be honest if you feel on top of your game you’re likely going to make more saves. What I worry most about are the mistakes. As you’re growing you’re going to be making a ton of mistakes on the field as a young goalkeeper. It’s super important to not get too down on yourself when you make these mistakes. You have to have a short memory in the moment to be able to move onto the next play. Later on though you shouldn’t be afraid to talk about what happened and why you feel that you made that mistake.
As a coach or a parent of a goalkeeper it doesn’t make sense to come down hard on a goalkeeper after they made particularly a very obvious mistake. What I like to do is calmly ask the goalkeeper what he or she saw on the field. A lot of times when you’re between the sticks you see that little shift or an issue that changes the ball trajectory. At times, it’s just impossible to be able to react in time. In other cases it’s just a lapse in concentration, judgment, confidence whatever it may be. I want my goalkeeper to have the confidence in me as a coach to let me know which plays he feels uncomfortable with so that we can work on it. Stay calm with goalkeepers, and you’ll get more out of them to be able to help in that psychological aspect.
Understand How Competitive Your Kid Is
I’m going to delve into the psychological aspect of things again here. I do feel that this particular issue is one that I’ve struggled with. In the sense that a lot of times my parents never really knew what to do or what to say to me in specific moments. For example if you have a kid who’s very competitive and they make a mistake and cost their team the game don’t tell them it’s no big deal, and that they should just forget about it. It’s probably not a big deal for you because you have other things going, but if your kid is competitive, and they spend a lot of their time on the pitch that is a big deal. Try to talk to them about what happened.
The same is true about kids who are not competitive. If you as a parent are competitive, and you see that your kid is not, that’s a you problem. You maybe would’ve loved to talk about what happened in the game with them. They just don’t really care. I’m not saying don’t support them, but you can’t over blow the importance of the game. What you’re going to end up doing is getting your kid to hate the game. The fact of the matter is, even if your kid’s not overly competitive it’s always a good idea to have them doing sports over some of the other recreational activities on the menu.
Youth Soccer Goalie Tips Conclusion
Some of these tips are certainly going to be more useful for some goalkeepers than for others. One of the things that I do want to highlight is that if you’re serious about getting good at this you may want to be doing a lot of extra curricular activity. One of my only regrets in the game is not putting in more time training when I could have. A lot of times with young goalkeepers some of the people around you should be motivating you to put in the extra work. For those people around young goalkeepers I know that it’s tough walking that tightrope between being a motivator and trying to force kids to do the extra work. On both sides we have to realize we’re doing the best that we can!
