Being a soccer goalkeeper is a thankless job but a super tough one.
You can spend large parts of the 90-minute soccer game doing nothing, but you still have to maintain absolute concentration.
This job is akin to a cop monitoring a highway to catch people driving over the speed limit. That one moment means everything for that cop’s job.
For soccer goalkeepers to stay sharp, they need to train their agility, concentration, speed, reflexes, and awareness.
In this article, you will learn about eight basic but important goalkeeper drills that will save your career as a goalkeeper (pun intended).
Top 8 Goalkeeper Drills
Here are the eight most effective goalkeeper drills you can try.
Three Cone Drill
Shots fly toward the goal at incredible speeds and at weird angles, which means goalkeepers have to shuffle on the goal line to be able to stop them.
The three-cone drill is a great way to strengthen a goalkeeper’s footwork, which helps them get into the right positions for effective goaltending.
Setup
Line up three cones of different colors 8 to 10 feet in front of the goal line. The player taking the shots from the penalty line yells out one color, and the goalkeeper races to that color before returning to the goal line.
At that point, the player taking the shots shoots the ball, testing the goalkeeper’s footwork and reflexes.
The player can start slow by allowing the goalkeeper to get close to the goal line before shooting and then up the tempo.
Move with the Ball
Reaction time is everything for a goalkeeper. Research around the topic suggests that reaction time is almost inversely proportional to speed, whereby the goalie’s reaction time doesn’t necessarily reduce the faster they are or increase the faster they are.
In essence, it is a complex field of genetics, and training can only do so much to improve it.
Regardless, goalkeepers need to train their reaction time because it is the difference between clean sheets (no goals) and whitewashing. The “Move with the Ball” drill is a perfect drill for reaction time.
Setup
Five players will pass the ball randomly among themselves before taking a shot at the goal. The trick is that only four passes are needed before shooting.
The goalie has to follow the ball movement because the shot can come from any player. The players can up the tempo by reducing the number of passes as the drill continues.
Goalie Wars
This is basically a goalkeeper 1v1. Most teams usually have three goalkeepers, two if they’re an amateur or semi-pro team.
This is for options if the main goalkeeper is unavailable, of course. The goalies can face themselves in this 1v1 with smaller-sized nets that test their speed and reflexes until a winner emerges.
A 20×15 playing zone is perfect for this so that there is enough space for goalkeepers to shoot at each other from inside their zones. It is important to note that one goalkeeper must be on the defense at all times and can only take shots if the attacking goalkeeper misses.
Agility Hands
As the name implies, this drill trains a goalkeeper’s agility. A FIFA-standard goal size is 8×24 feet and the average height of a goalkeeper is 6 feet 2 inches.
Not one goalkeeper is truly menacing enough to cover such a massive space, hence their need to be agile.
Setup
Set up a series of cones in front of the goal, and then after the last cone, set up two dummies horizontally six to seven yards apart in front of the cones.
The goalkeeper weaves through the cones and then stops beside a dummy to claim a ball that can be served high, low or at chest level.
Once he catches the ball, he weaves back to the goal line through the cones and returns the ball for another round.
Single Cone Drill
We have seen a drill that helps with footwork, one that helps with agility and one that helps with reaction time.
The single cone goalkeeper drill helps with reflexes, which goalkeepers need to react effectively to shots, especially those ones that change direction.
To perform this drill, set up a cone a few yards from and perpendicular to the goal line. This cone is a dummy attacker.
The person helping with this drill stands at various corners of the penalty area, ready to shoot at the goal after the goalkeeper rushes towards the cone and returns to the goal line.
Bounce Reaction Drill
Footballs bounce at awkward angles sometimes. Goalkeepers must be alert to detect the bounce angle and catch the ball to prevent a goal or a goalscoring action.
Setup
With or without cones, mark an area where the ball will bounce. The person helping with the drill calls the goalkeeper, who runs to the marked area to try and catch the ball which will be thrown on the ground in the marked area.
A round of the drill is completed when the goalkeeper can catch the ball after it bounces in whatever direction. To throw the goalie off, the partner can also choose to toss the ball in the air.
Low Diving Drill
High shots are rarer than low shots in real-game situations because players have realized that goalkeepers train more for them. High shots are also a bit difficult to pull off as players need enough space for accuracy.
This is why most goal-bound shots are low drives, which also means goalkeepers must train their low dives.
The drill is just performed with a player shooting low balls to the goalkeeper’s right and left as he dives to both sides to stop them.
To make the drill harder, the goalkeeper can be made to stand away from the center of the goal to the right or the left while the player shoots to the opposite side.
180˚ Turn Drill
A player like Bukayo Saka, with an incredible sense of precision and accuracy, could whip in a cross that you think may be headed for one angle.
You position yourself for the shot from that angle, only for it to float to another angle where another player is waiting.
The 180° turn drill helps the goalkeeper with his “reflective reflex,” which is the speed with which he changes directions toward the angle the ball is coming from.
Set up
The goalkeeper begins the drill, facing away from the center. The player assisting the goalkeeper then calls out to the goalkeeper just as they are about to shoot.
The goalkeeper must be alert enough to stop it before it goes into the back of the net.
Final thoughts
Being a soccer goalkeeper is a tough task and this is why their training is very different from what the outfield players do.
Anyone familiar with the fundamentals of soccer knows this fact about goalkeepers.
While outfield player drills can be light or just to train a player’s technique, almost every goalkeeper drill mimics real game situations.
The eight goalkeeper drills described above are a great way to get started and get better at being a goalie, which is a job that not many want but many are proud to be able to do. Make sure to practice them seriously!
