Modern Goalkeepers: More Flaps Than...
When I was a kid, I liked to play in goal. Being the goalie was great
because it meant you didn't get kicked much, didn't have to run around,
could just aimlessly hoof the ball up the pitch (a talent all England
keepers seem reluctant to give up on), could talk to the girls behind
the goal when the play was up-field and yet could still impress everyone
by making extravagant dives. If you were agile, people thought you were
good.
I quickly learned that there was glory between the sticks if you
dived around a lot. Coming out for crosses and generally positioning
yourself well went unnoticed, but leaping athletically to tip one over
the bar made other kids think you were great. Even at a young age, like
all keepers, I developed the art of making simple saves look
spectacular. Like sex, it mostly involves kicking your legs in the air,
arching your back and pulling faces.
However, this policy only worked for so long. Eventually a lack of
basic technique, concentration and positioning showed I was actually
rubbish (this applied to the sex as well). Really great keepers can
often cut out problems before they start by commanding their box and
bossing defenders around. That wasn't for me and by then I had
discovered UFO, drink and girls, and a life of muddy knees and
over-sized gloves lost all its attractions.
The principle of good goalkeeping used to be based around the fact
that because you have the huge advantage of being able to handle the
ball the defenders should defer to you at all times. It also dictated
that you would try and grab hold of the ball as much as possible, rather
than punch it or wait for a defender to clear it.
Thus keepers were legendary personalities. From the old spaghetti
legs to the scorpion kick to dislocating your jaw shouting at defenders,
the goalie was master of his domain and an often crazy mofo.
Until recently, those who were in the elite of goalkeeping could do
it all; they were superb shot-stoppers, commanded the box on crosses and
could distribute the ball by hoying it half the length of the pitch
with accuracy. Peter Schmeichel was the archetype. An awesome, dominant
presence with no obvious weaknesses.
At the moment the Premier League is full of some of the best
shot-stoppers we've ever seen; men with fantastic quick reactions and
cat-like agility. Watching Joe Hart, David de Gea, Michel Vorm and many
more, they are very undoubtedly impressive. Hart's performance against
Borussia Dortmund was an exemplary display of modern goalkeeping in that
it was relentlessly brilliant shot-stopping.
Hart is often declared by commentators to be world class, or even the
best in the world. But the oft ignored fact is that Hart, like so many
modern keepers is a committed and long-term practitioner of The Flap.
Being a flapper used to automatically disqualify you from greatness. He
regularly doesn't command crosses, he gets caught in no-man's land, he
stays anchored to his line all too often when he should be ploughing
through defenders to get the ball.
Because of this Hart, like all his contemporaries, has a major rick
in him most games. He won't be found wanting at a ball hit at pace into
the top corner; instead his howler will almost always occur from a good
corner or a whipped cross, at which point he will look at the ball as
though it is an alien concept and flap at it like an over-sized owl.
Hart is far from unique in this. Just look at De Gea. Super-fast
reactions, makes brilliant saves every game, but has less presence than a
fart in a space suit. De Gea couldn't command a poodle let alone a
defence. Admittedly the fact that he looks 10 stone wet through doesn't
help and his silly Something-About-Mary hair just undermines any
authority he might be able to inspire. He won't be dislocating his jaw
shouting at defenders for sure. Not that he seems bothered. Like most
modern keepers he has no interest in much else other than shot-stopping.
The modern keepers appear to have been trained this way.
The regular flapping seems to have been discounted in Hart's case.
The narrative arc is that he's world class and anything which suggests
otherwise is largely ignored. But the fact remains that in the next two
England games, Hart will likely at some point come out waving his arms,
get nowhere near the ball and have to be bailed out by his defenders on
at least one occasion. And the commentator, seemingly suffering from
amnesia will say how 'out of character' it is. It's not. This is the
modern keeper all over.
Obviously, Hart is young and he should get better with age. Call me
old-fashioned if you will but I'd like to see a goalkeeper have more
comprehensive talents before being declared brilliant.
So how and why has the art of goalkeeping changed? Is it just a
fashion? Is it a failure of coaching? Has zonal marking outlawed the
need for keepers to stray off their line? Is the dominance of
short-arsed midfield fanny merchants making the need to be good in the
air and on crosses irrelevant because football played on the ground is
the current obsession? I have no idea but there must be some reason for
it.
One thing is for sure, being able to judge a cross - when to come for
it and when to stay on your line - is still an important skill.
When your side is under pressure and the ball is launched into the
box, there is no finer sight in football than seeing your keeper
ploughing through an army of players like a cruise missile to pluck the
ball out of the air and clutch it to his chest. In the '60s and '70s
keepers who hated crosses were always called Dracula, today it looks
like we've got a whole league of vampires.
source: http://www.football365.com/john-nicholson/8147921/Johnny-Nic
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