GOALKEEPING FOOTWORK
Alongside fitness, footwork is one of the most vital parts of goalkeeping. Good and quick footwork could be the difference between making that one handed top corner save which keeps your team in the game, or letting it in and not being remembered for your goalkeeping ability. Although footwork will help us make these spectacular saves it will also help us with the more mundane sides of goalkeeping. This could include movement to get the body in line with the balls flight or moving the feet swiftly to drop on a ball fired in at your feet at pace. One thing is for sure, a goalkeeper with poor footwork will ultimately be a poor shot stopper. Below you will find various drills that you can use to improve your footwork.
1. Ladder Work:
Again, using ladders will be one of the best methods to improve your footwork. It will be important to take each drill slowly to start off with to make sure that the technique used is correct. There would be no point practising a technique wrongly as it would end up affecting you for the worse. So, take the first set slowly to get the footwork correct then increase the tempo as you feel more comfortable with the technique. It is important that when you complete one set you rest for a set time to prepare you for the next repetition.
Single steps (in each space)
Double steps (in each space)
Side steps (two feet in each space)
Icky Shuffle (one foot out, two feet in..each space)
Backwards Icky shuffle (one foot out, two feet in..each space)
One foot hops (one in each space, don't forget to change feet after each set)
Two hops forwards, one hop backwards (working only one foot at a time, hop two spaces then hop back one before hoping another two spaces then back one)
For each of the above footwork techniques, work for a set of six carried out at a rapid rate and then rest for thirty seconds. Repeat each set of six three times.
2. Cone Work
Cone work will allow you to work in nore match like situations. The footwork may consit of bigger steps, something that the ladders dosen't allow due to the small spaces and may require you to work over a longer distance. Below are drills that you can carry out using cones. Again, make sure that you rest between each repition for a set time.
Set cones out, six in a straight line:
Single steps in each space
Double steps in each space
Slalom through each gap
Backward slalom through each gap
Set cones out, six in a zig zag pattern:
Side steps around each cone
Backwards side steps around each cone
3. Cone work, with footballs
To further make the footwork drill more match realsitic a ball can be added in to certain drills so that each movement finishes with a save or so that the whole set finishes with a save.
Set cones out, six in a straight line with a small cone goal at the end:
Single steps in each space finishing off with a volley from the server at a certain height. Height can be changed at the end of each repetition to test the keepers various handling techniques.
Double steps in each space finishing off with a volley from the server at a certain height. Height can be changed at the end of each repetition to test the keepers various handling techniques.
Set cones out, six in a zig zag pattern:
Side step across to cone and perform a diving save ( ball thrown by server) return to your feet and side step across to the next cone and perform a diving save in that direction etc...
