November 18, 2006
   

After watching more games and doing a few sessions I decided to chat this week about keeper's going to ground needlessly. In covering this subject there are two areas of concern to speak about; Firstly there are those keepers who drop down to their knees and wait for a rolling ball to come to them; Secondly there are those keepers who feel the need to go to ground to make a save look spectacular.

When dropping to your knee or knees you are waiting for the ball to come to you instead of attacking the ball to get it at the earliest possible point. If you wait for the ball it allows more time for an opponent to get a touch on the ball to deflect it, possibly causing a goal or a scoring opportunity as well as allowing the possibility of an accidental touch by a defender.
Next, (follow the play) the opposition builds up play coming to your goal and creates an attempt on goal that you perform a collapse dive to save, even though you could have stepped sideways to get behind the ball and catch it. While you are on the ground and trying to recover to your feet the opposition is afforded the opportunity to regroup into a position to defend against any attempt at a quick counter attack. The opportunity to possibly have numbers up in a counter attack effort is stopped because you have taken the time from your teammates by trying to make a simple save look spectacular. I do understand that there are times when you will have to go to ground and that is fine as log as the proper decision has been made. I have watched far too many keepers slow their movement to the ball to enable them to make a diving save.      

That's it for now, I will look forward to your comments and will get to work on next week's chat.

Gary
           
         
      Email your Comments or Questions to Gary  
     
Last Updated November 18, 2006