Some thoughts on coaching goalkeepers
Based upon my experience as a goalkeeper and my coaching experiences, I developed some ideas aobut how to train goalkeepers. If you would like to see why I feel that I am qualified to spew forth my ideas on this topic, please feel free to check out my soccer career.
Little Girls (U13)
Everybody has their own ideas regarding how much kids of this age can do and how much to let them abuse their bodies. I tend to let them do what they can and want to do. My best kid was learning how to dive at the end of the season. She had some trouble maintaining the "w" with her hands when she dove, but that is to be expected. She did have problems with coordinating her arms and legs for high balls too.With girls of this age, I found a couple of things to be important. First, they need heaps of positive reinforcement. As they start, just moving to the ball and using their hands is reason enough for praise. As they continue to work with a coach and improve, praise should start coming as a result of the girls applying something they practices, as the result of an extra-ordinary effort, as the result of staying focused, and things of that nature.
Second, girls of this age tend to believe that goals occur as a result of something they did wrong. It is important to remind them that there are 10 other people in front of them and sometimes shit happens. Then it is possible to break it down into what happened and how to possibly prevent it from happening again.
Third, and last for now, it is very important to be able to show the girls what do and how to do it properly when introducing a new drill. This does not mean that one has to be a great goalkeeper to coach goalkeepers, but let's face it. It is very hard to teach someone how to do something if someone cannot first show the proper technique. Many of the things taught at this level can be shown to the kids pretty easily, just take some time to look at the pictures and try it alone first.
I will add ideas for more age groups as the work progresses. I hope to have some more up within a week or two.
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