Feature 2: Wanting the ball / Being an option and Distribution under Pressure
✅ Ball control
✅ Awareness
✅ Comfortable on the ball
✅ Spacial awareness
✅ Playing under pressure
✅ Being an option through positioning
✅ Dealing with awkward back passes
✅ Pass Appreciation
These are football skills that are more associated with outfield players, that’s why we’ve called it “Outfield Qualities”
Playing outfield is where Lee had developed these and have played a huge part in his style of play
You get a lot of goalkeepers who are great at distributing dead balls or when they have a lot of time
The difference is being able to do it under pressure
Its funny what a bit of pressure can do. The Gk’s who aren’t comfortable under pressure lose their distribution quality! You might see miss kicks, balls being put out of play or giving up possession far too easily which can potentially end up putting your team under pressure
Times in game where def/mid play ball back to the Gk as the only option. If you're playing in a team that doesn't play out from back / encouraged, there'll not be another close range pass, so gk needs to be able to distribute ball accurately higher up pitch under pressure
If you’re able to deal with back-passes better by either being in a better position or if you’re comfortable enough on the ball, you can be a huge asset to your team:
✅ Defence are confident in playing the ball back
✅ You can deal with awkward back passes
✅ Defence can play higher
✅ Higher chance of keeping possession
✅ Higher chance of starting a counter attack
✅ Less chance of putting your team under pressure
There's been a lot of focus on playing out from the back in the last few years, but apart from a hand full of top top teams, not many others can.
If you have a gk who can play the ball effectively up the pitch to either create chances, move possession higher up the pitch, put the opposing team under pressure or at the minimum, win second balls / concede set plays, encourage that, work on that
‼️ There’ll be one more feature to go on this topic, covering how you could help expose goalkeepers to this and improve performance
🧤
It has been shown that on average elite level GKs typically perform 4-10 ‘defensive actions’ per game, all at high intensity.
1/11
💥🚀
These actions are very short in duration, often with long intervals in between them. Therefore, whist physical fatigue may not be the issue for GKs during match-play, the ability to concentrate and focus for those prolonged periods, may be the deciding factor.
2/11
🍌🍓🥔🍗🥩
In my previous post I highlighted that research indicates that GKs energy expenditure was approximately 600 kcal.d-1 less than that observed in outfield players, for example, approximately 2900 kcal vs 3500 kcal per day.
GKs don’t hop to set. They hop to self organise their body to dive.
You see a “mistake” and look at twitter you’ll find countless theories regarding why that GK conceded which always leads to a technical / physical error.
But your body will only produce an action as a reaction to what it perceives.
Is the chosen action wrong because of what the brain is telling them to do as opposed to their body “unable to do something” due to set up?
Set up changes according to situation / what you perceive.
So how do people differentiate between anatomical and mental “issues”?
Remember this is just thoughts! But hopefully this thread can give others something else to think about before jumping to a physical fix.