Making Save After Save
After Save

Mark Trznadel provides this drill for making lots of saves. It is a great drill and it is good for conditioning

Set 6 or more (up to 10 or 12) balls up in a line (depending on skill level (less for less advanced and more for the more advanced)) and have the keeper lay on either one of their side with their hands out in front of the first ball. Have the goalie move themselves alone the line while another person is kicking the balls at them. Start out slow and speed up as they get more comfortable with it. Switch to their other side after each round.

Note: This is very tiring so give them a break every 5 or so.
 
Thanks for the drill Mark. I'm sure that many will find it useful.
Les

Making the Awkward Save

Strikers spend lots of time working on shooting from awkward positions. Shooting bouncing balls, and so on. Keepers need to spend time working on making saves from awkward positions. Here are a few suggestions to get you thinking of what you need to work on. You can make up your own drills. When you come up with a good on, share it with the rest of us.

1. Keeper assumes a seated position. Ball is served at the keeper who must make save with hands or feet. When first beginning the drill, the serve should be placed where the keeper has a high percentage chance of making the save. As the keeper becomes proficient, the difficultly of making the save should be increased. The serve should be placed at various locations so that the keeper develops ability make save with both hands and feet. Pressure can be increased by adding an additional attacking player.
    
2. Same as 1 except that keeper is on knees, side, or stomach.
   
   Please send your ideas to me. Les
    

Another Awkward Save Drill

Jayson Margol e-mail Mlsjay@aol.com has provided the following drill. He would like to hear comments and suggestions about the drill.

  On to my next subject, the Awkward Save Drill. This drill was created by me after a groin pull to work the muscle out and make sure everything was okay.
However, now I use it everyday and as much as possible because it has helped not only my diving skills but my reaction skills as well. I hope not only that you use it on your site but that you get positive results from it. If it is not too much trouble I would greatly appreciate it if you accredited it to me and put my email address, Mlsjay@aol.com , on as well for people to email with their comments about it whether good or bad, Thank you. Here is the drill:

    First off the goalkeeper MUST stretch not only normally but put extra stretching on the gorin muscle and the hamstring because this drill puts pressure on both greatly. The drill starts off with the keeper in net standing normally. Attackers are lined on the 18-yard box all the way across, each with a ball. The goalkeeper then squats but does not let either his hands, knees, or anything else but the tips of his feet touch the ground. The keeper stays in the middle of the goal. Then in the normal set position aside from the fact that they are squatting the goalkeeper is forced to dive either left or right, up or down, to make the saves off of each attackers shot. After the shot is either blocked or in the net, the next shooter immediately shoots as the goalkeeper sets himself as quickly as possible. This could go on for however long desired and can most likely can be varied in many ways such as instead of having plain shooters, you can have two lines and a one-touch-pass then shoot drill. However the part that must stay constant for this drill to work is the position and set of the keeper which is squatting. After the drill is over before another one is started, I strongly suggest that the keeper stretch out once again and once again pay extra  attention to the groin and hamstring muscle.

    That is my drill. It helps with diving, reaction time, jumping skills, timing, and almost every other aspect of playing goal. I hope this does well on your site. And thank you ahead of time for putting my email address and name as its creator. Thank you for your time. If you like this drill and would like others to put on your site please let me know. I have a ton of other drills if you would like to post them. Also one more thing before I go; please notify me when this drill is posted so I can go and see it. Thank you again.

Thanks Jayson.

Copyright 1996-2002 ©Les Sparks

Les Sparks had the Goalkeeper's Corner website for the Carolina United Soccer Club from 1996 - 2002.  With Les' permission I have posted many of his goalkeeper exercises on the NASL website.

Created: 12/20/99
Last Updated: 06/04/03

Since February 24, 1999
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  Web Administrator    Ken Gamble