There are three main skills I believe are critical for your success as a goalkeeper. Failing on any of these three will decrease your performance greatly!

1. Physical Ability

Just because you are short doesn’t have to mean that your goalkeeper career is over.

One of the best goalkeepers ever was the Mexican flying bird Jorge Luis Campos aka El Brody.

Campos was known for his constant play outside the 18 yard box, his great acrobatic style in the goal and also his attire.

His main strength as goalkeeper was his leaping ability and speed which helped him to overcome his low height of 1.68 m or 5 ft 6 in!

As you can see, it doesn’t matter actually how tall you are as long as you have motivation and will to work hard on improving your soccer skills.

So what can you actually do to improve your physical ability? Well, as a short goalkeeper you will be able to dive faster, but what about your ability to jump for high balls?

Well, you can’t get taller by practicing so you have to find out some other way to supplement this. However, the mentioned above is not just for short goalkeepers.

It doesn’t matter actually how tall you are because you will still need to work on improving your upper body strength.

One thing you can do to get a stronger upper body is to spend more time on lifting weights.

The reason for why you need a stronger upper body is that you will often have 2 or more opponents around you while jumping for the ball.

It is therefore crucial to have good physical strength in your upper body to win that battle. Speaking of physical strength, working on your explosive power through some of the Olympic lifts may also be an option.

This is suggested mostly for advanced strength training types that already know the foundation. Otherwise, don’t do it.

2. Stop Complaining at Your Teammates

Having good mental abilities is vital for a soccer goalkeeper. What you say as goalkeeper will often affect the performance of your teammates (both positively and negatively).

This is important to keep in mind as you can’t expect your teammates helping you if you complain to them all time.

It actually doesn’t matter how good you are if you don’t encourage your teammates, they will not help you.

One way to practice on this is to calm down and think positively. Consider that your team is down 5 – 0.

The easiest thing to do in that moment is to start to complain to your teammates.

However, remember that their confidence will be pretty low and if you start to tell them how poor their game is then you have to be prepared for the reality that they may not even show up for the next game.

Accept that you lost the game but tell your teammates that they made a solid performance (even when you don’t mean it).

Believe me, as a field player the worst thing is to have a goalkeeper that use 80% of his time to complain while standing in the goal.

Encourage your teammates even in difficult situations because with complaining you will not get any long.

3. Analyze Your Own Game

The best way to analyze your own game is to record your matches. However, this will be pretty hard to do by yourself as you need to protect the goal.

What you can do instead is to involve a friend to show up and to record your games.

Avoid watching your game directly after the game is over (especially if you lost the game) as you may get too involved emotionally.

It is always easier to accept a loss 2 or more days later. While watching your games try to spot your weaknesses (believe me, there are always weaknesses no matter how good you are).

Write them down and bring them to your next practice. Tell your coach that you have analyzed your own performance in the last game and that you want to practice on your mistakes.

It can be hard to admit that you have room for improvement. But even professional goalies work on their rough spots. Why shouldn’t you?