Goalkeeper Training

If your boy is a goalkeeper, how often does he attend GK training?  Is he using only the training provided at his club or is he also paying for additional training elsewhere?  My boy attempts to attend twice a week for the *scheduled* training provided at his (big and expensive) club.  Our experience in the past two years finds the reliability of the coaches' attendance to be inconsistent, to put it kindly.  I notice there is overlap in GK coaches between clubs as well.  Is there such a shortage of GK coaches in North Dallas that unreliability is accepted?  Are we the only ones having this experience?

We are very happy with our team coach, but my boy's GK training is obviously a big factor for his position as well. If you're having a great, developmental, and reliable GK training experience, can you please share more details?

My son has been playing GK exclusively for over 5 years at this point for several clubs and at several levels in DFW.  His mother was GK up through college and once he deciced it was what he wanted to do she immediately decided to get him some outside training.

Our experience with the club keeper coaches hasn't been too bad in terms of scheduled practices, but their has always been some issues with skipped scheduled days.  A lot of these folks are paid from the fees the club collects and the clubs don't sink to much money into them, so they are also either coaching teams, training GKs at several clubs, or a mix plus running their own private programs in order to make ends meet.

Our biggest issue with the club trainers has been less with missing dates and weird schedules, but more with how they run the sessions.  Some do a good job of working in a very well laid out pattern that develops over the season, while others seem to just randomly pick things to work on without any sort of thought to how thinds progress naturally.

Another thing is how much they actually focus on the players.  My son has worked with some club trainers who couldn't tell you anything about a player they have been working with for years or layout a development plan for that player.  For those ones its almost like they are just babysitting the keepers until the coach wants them back at practice to scrimamge or shooting drills.

While we didn't have any major issues with the club keeper coaches, after looking at the limitations that they have in terms of club schedules and the number of players they train at a time in some cases, we realized that if you want to truelly develop you can't trust the club program to do it for you.

My son's routine is:

Team practices 3 times a week.
Club keeper training up 2 times a week
Private keeper training up 3 times a week
Agility/Conditioning/foot skills 1 time a week

He also attends various camps and short run sessions with various other keeper and skills/agility coaches throughout the year.  My wife beleives that working with the same trainers regularly is good, but also that he should be exposed to other ideas adn styles to help him develop.  His current mix of coaches all know each other and communicate with each other either directly or through my son to make sure they are all on the same page and working towards his development.

panzerbug wrote:My son has been playing GK exclusively for over 5 years at this point for several clubs and at several levels in DFW.  His mother was GK up through college and once he deciced it was what he wanted to do she immediately decided to get him some outside training.

Our experience with the club keeper coaches hasn't been too bad in terms of scheduled practices, but their has always been some issues with skipped scheduled days.  A lot of these folks are paid from the fees the club collects and the clubs don't sink to much money into them, so they are also either coaching teams, training GKs at several clubs, or a mix plus running their own private programs in order to make ends meet.

Our biggest issue with the club trainers has been less with missing dates and weird schedules, but more with how they run the sessions.  Some do a good job of working in a very well laid out pattern that develops over the season, while others seem to just randomly pick things to work on without any sort of thought to how thinds progress naturally.

Another thing is how much they actually focus on the players.  My son has worked with some club trainers who couldn't tell you anything about a player they have been working with for years or layout a development plan for that player.  For those ones its almost like they are just babysitting the keepers until the coach wants them back at practice to scrimamge or shooting drills.

While we didn't have any major issues with the club keeper coaches, after looking at the limitations that they have in terms of club schedules and the number of players they train at a time in some cases, we realized that if you want to truelly develop you can't trust the club program to do it for you.

My son's routine is:

Team practices 3 times a week.
Club keeper training up 2 times a week
Private keeper training up 3 times a week
Agility/Conditioning/foot skills 1 time a week

He also attends various camps and short run sessions with various other keeper and skills/agility coaches throughout the year.  My wife beleives that working with the same trainers regularly is good, but also that he should be exposed to other ideas adn styles to help him develop.  His current mix of coaches all know each other and communicate with each other either directly or through my son to make sure they are all on the same page and working towards his development.

Wow- 9 sessions a week. Seems excessive. We go 1-2 times a week to dedicated keeper training outside club practice. If there is a conflict we skip club. I agree that the big club coaches are unorganized and lack thought and planning. We found them to be a waste of time compared to what we received in private training.

dreadpirateroberts wrote:

Wow- 9 sessions a week. Seems excessive.  We go 1-2 times a week to dedicated keeper training outside club practice. If there is a conflict we skip club.  I agree that the big club coaches are unorganized and lack thought and planning. We found them to be a waste of time compared to what we received in private training.

Those all aren't keeper sessions, he does 2-5 a week depending on schedule and weather between private and club. But it is his choice, his mom and I actually have to reign him in because given a choice he will choose soccer over anything else.

For the summers it's not unusual for him to spend from 9 - noon (M-F) working with the skills trainer who will also work on keeping. Then every couple of weeks add a afternoon keeper camp to the program. He also has done several residency camps with 3 to 4 sessions a day during the week. If there was decent street soccer or pickup games at te schools near out house, I'm sure he would be over there most the summer and during his free time.

For him club stuff comes first, the club trainer sessions are usually before or after his team sessions. That is where him and his teammates learn to work together and he gets to practice his skills in game settings. It's nice as well in some sessions the club keeper coach will just work with the keepers durign their practices with their teams. He also comes to some of the games which is extremely helpful.

The extra training is stuff he gives up his own free time for on the weekends and Friday nights if we aren't traveling for games. He would rather work on his skills the sit in front of the Playstation, tv, or with his face stuck in his phone.

I never did sports growing up so it mystifies me how he can want to spend so much time doing it, but it is what he wants to do. He has been at it now going on 7 years and only seems to be getting more into it.

panzerbug wrote:

dreadpirateroberts wrote:

Wow- 9 sessions a week. Seems excessive.  We go 1-2 times a week to dedicated keeper training outside club practice. If there is a conflict we skip club.  I agree that the big club coaches are unorganized and lack thought and planning. We found them to be a waste of time compared to what we received in private training.

Those all aren't keeper sessions, he does 2-5 a week depending on schedule and weather between private and club.  But it is his choice, his mom and I actually have to reign him in because given a choice he will choose soccer over anything else.  

For the summers it's not unusual for him to spend from 9 - noon (M-F) working with the skills trainer who will also work on keeping.  Then every couple of weeks add a afternoon keeper camp to the program.  He also has done several residency camps with 3 to 4 sessions a day during the week.  If there was decent street soccer or pickup games at te schools near out house, I'm sure he would be over there most the summer and during his free time.

For him club stuff comes first, the club trainer sessions are usually before or after his team sessions. That is where him and his teammates learn to work together and he gets to practice his skills in game settings.  It's nice as well in some sessions the club keeper coach will just work with the keepers durign their practices with their teams.  He also comes to some of the games which is extremely helpful.

The extra training is stuff he gives up his own free time for on the weekends and Friday nights if we aren't traveling for games.  He would rather work on his skills the sit in front of the Playstation, tv, or with his face stuck in his phone.

I never did sports growing up so it mystifies me how he can want to spend so much time doing it, but it is what he wants to do.  He has been at it now going on 7 years and only seems to be getting more into it.  

Curious, how old is your son?  You mentioned traveling for games.  What level is he playing?

That’s not excessive if that’s what your BB wants to do. I have a BB that’s the same; 4 scheduled club practices a week, private lessons and then he begs me to take him to the park every day so he can practice more. So I chase his balls around the field, getting my excercise 3 times a week.

I tried to reign him in about a year ago and cut it back; his school started calling me saying he needed to meet with the counselor once a week to learn how to control his energy. I just let him play as much as he wanted and....no more school problems.

I’d rather him play a sport he loves than be on ridilin(so?).

He is an 04.  Played in the DA the last 2 years and will be again this upcoming U15 year.

He traveled for tournaments starting at U9, but having travel games for about 1/3 his schdule when he started the DA was a big eye opener for him.

When my sone was this age he was at FCD and was begging to make all 4 keeper sessions every week (at the time FCD had 3 keeper coaches), his team practices, and 3 private sessions a week.  On top of that he was playing basketball and during martial arts.  He slowly dropped out of the other two so he could cram in more soccer.

Luv08 wrote:That’s not excessive if that’s what your BB wants to do.  I have a BB that’s the same; 4 scheduled club practices a week, private lessons and then he begs me to take him to the park every day so he can practice more.  So I chase his balls around the field, getting my excercise 3 times a week.  

I tried to reign him in about a year ago and cut it back; his school started calling me saying he needed to meet with the counselor once a week to learn how to control his energy.  I just let him play as much as he wanted and....no more school problems.

I’d rather him play a sport he loves than be on ridilin(so?).  

Definitely understand that. My son has ADD and OCD. He does biofeedback therapy and the therapist has said that the soccer and his need to focus on it has helped him out a lot.