Best for:
Coaches of goalkeepers
In a nutshell:
Authors Englund and Pascarella offer their ideas for technique, fitness, tactics, and mental preparation.
Worth quoting:
“Communicate!”
Why I chose it:
I am a goalkeeper.
Review:
I bought this back in 2018 when I started playing football (soccer) again after a couple of years off. When we come out of lock down 3 in England, I will get back on the pitch, this time with a new team, and with a five-month off-season. While I run 8-10K every day, I’ve done virtually no strength or agility training for three months.
Yikes.
I decided to crack this book and while it includes a lot of very good information, it isn’t for me as a player – it is for the coaches. And while I appreciate they use some photos of women keepers, they choose to refer to every goalkeeper as ‘he’. Not exactly an inclusive approach.
I was hoping there would at least be some information in there on exercises one can do to improve strength and agility outside of formal training with one’s team, but there is none of that here. The discussions around different types of tactics were, however, very useful, and I’ll likely review them again regularly to get my mind back on football.
Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep it – some of the training diagrams might come in handy some day.
