Friday 26th October: Worcester Goalkeeping Academy
Session 4
This was my 2nd session I had lead at the
goalkeeping academy and this time I was on my own for the whole time, with no
help from another coach. As with the last session my main aims were to improve
footwork however this time I wanted to introduce some more challenging
activities the test the goalkeepers a bit more. This time I had 4 goalkeepers,
2 were the same as I had last week but I also had 2 new goalkeepers that were
slightly more experienced and were of a high standard.
I did the same warm up as I did last week as I wanted to keep
it familiar to the goalkeepers and it’s also good to have the ball in their
hands right from the start s it engages them more. We then moved straight into
the 1st activity that was focused on a bit of footwork before the
goalkeepers set themselves for a save from the server. The goalkeepers had to
use tight footwork to get through some cones and then save a difficult shot
from me, I wanted to start with this activity to see what the goalkeepers had
learnt and remembered from last week’s session. Both Mike and Morgan remembered
their footwork well and did the first activity very well with a vast
improvement on what they showed at the start of last week. The two new
goalkeepers also completed the activity to a high standard but there was one
coaching point I picked up on with all four of them. When they were saving the
shot they were stood on the goal line meaning there was no room for error and
in a game it would be easier for the striker to score. I told them that once
they had done the footwork they should take a couple of steps off of the line
to help with the successful saving of the shot.
The 2nd activity I set up was a very important
footwork drill set in a square where each cone had a number, when instructed
to, the goalkeepers had to use good footwork to make their way to the specified
cone before getting back to the middle and saving a shot. The key points I made
from this activity were that the goalkeepers had to keep their heads up as much
as possible with eyes on the ball rather than the floor. I also made sure that
when they got back to the middle they were set with the ‘W’ shape in their
hands, this would make sure that they would have an easier catch and there was
less chance they would drop the ball. I noticed that Mike kept on dropping the
ball and falling backwards when trying to make the save so I took him to the
side and showed him how he could improve. I told him that he would have a much
better chance of making a save if when he set himself he had his hands out in
front of him and leant forwards a bit. When Mike went back into the square I
saw a vast improvement, although he was not necessarily catching every ball he
was pushing it away rather than falling backwards and watching the ball roll
in.
The final a drill was one that Andy introduced to me last
week that works on both fitness and handling. It is basically a triangle that
goalkeepers have to sidestep around before making a low diving save on each
face of the triangle. Although not many coaching points came of this it was
good to put into practice what we had been learning about over the last couple
of sessions and I was pleased to see that all four of the goalkeepers completed
the triangle and their footwork had improved a lot over the 2 sessions we had
had so far. We then finished with a game of ‘Last Keeper Standing’ but instead
of running straight into the goal they had to complete a ladder of footwork,
again just building slightly and reminding them what we had learnt.
I really enjoyed this session and it was good to see an
improvement in Mike and Morgan especially. I look forwards to next week’s
session, which is my last with this set of goalkeepers.
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